They are highly recommended in my favorite resource for homeschooling (that I think every person considering homeschooling should read), "The Well Trained Mind" by Susan Wise Bauer. She says, "[Pattern blocks are] one of the most useful preschool manipulative sets. Each 250-piece set of 1-cm thick blocks contains 25 yellow hexagons, 25 orange squares, 50 green triangles, 50 red trapezoids, 50 blue parallelograms, and 50 tan rhombuses. Stack them, count them, make pictures with them, wallow in them."
We've done just that. Many mornings, pattern blocks are the first thing the kids ask for even before breakfast. They are fantastic! They are great because all three kids can play with them at the same time at their own level and speed. They are great for creativity. They teach geometry. Green Light can tell me the names of all of the shapes and he knows things like: two trapezoids or six triangles make a hexagon...and he's three years old! They are great for developing perceptual abilities. They teach how shapes can fit together and how different angles fit differently with each other. I just love them. We really have "wallowed in them"!
Take a look at a few of our creations. Roundabout insists that we take pictures of most creations before they get destroyed by little Curvy Road....
6 comments:
that is amazing!
oh and can i send my kids to your school??
We love pattern blocks! Where did you get your set. It is actually something I have been looking for for Ryan's birthday, but none of the ones I have seen look as sturdy or as large as the set you have. Did you get them at Kaplans?
That looks like a lot of fun. I bet my kids would love those.
Yes they are fun and wonderful. The kids don't even know they are learning.
I used pattern blocks with my 7th grade math students to help teach them about fractions. They are VERY useful manipulatives!
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