What really matters- Increased Coordination- Stacking blocks and knocking them down is a great activity for our toddlers. Not only is it great fun. They are putting together a bunch of skills across different domains. Socially as we have been discussing they are figuring out the rules of engaging you. Cognitively they can visualize their goal of a tower. Growing motor skills enable them to refine their eye-hand coordination to successfully accomplish their goal. Watch the video to right, Whitney can grasp an object, release it at will, then balance another object on top of the first object.

How to put it into practice-

Tuning In- Once Whitney started stacking blocks, we noticed her trying to stack lots of things like shoes, dolls, boxes and lots if items around the house.

Bridging-  We can encourage these forays. For example, When putting away groceries, we try to involve Whitney in helping us to stack any canned or boxed goods away in the cupboard.  Although it may seem like it takes forever for Whitney to investigate each can and successfully stack it on top of another, it is a valuable skill for Whitney to practice.

Ensuring the Joy- Easy here, especially the excitement of when they knock the stack down and it goes flying. bring out the blocks to a clear spot on the floor and dump several out.