Use our FREE printable block play challenge cards to encourage and extend the construction play in your setting, bring STEAM to your block play in the classroom or home.
Playing with blocks is a childhood rite of passage.
We've all played with blocks and some of lucky enough to work with young children, are still playing because we know how important block play is to developing early spatial intelligence such as problem solving, spatial awareness and reasoning skills as well as building fine motor skills and co-ordination.
Building with blocks at preschool and you also have opportunities for imaginative, co-operative play to help develop social skills and language laden with early maths concepts.
And one of the best bits, you get to knock it down at the end!
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Back in 2012, I made some printable cards to challenge the preschoolers I work with to engage in different sorts of play with wooden blocks. In our post, prompting block play you can read how we encouraged this way of playing with blocks and the reasons why developing spatial thinking is so important in early childhood.
Since then, many of you have messaged me asking for a copy of the cards. Now for the first time, you can download these printable challenge cards to add to your block area for FREE.
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The prompts were simple enough. I used a set of simple coloured wooden blocks to create different visuals of familiar objects - a tree, a house, a truck, a rocket, a person, a face along with some early maths concepts - a pattern, a square, a triangle, a rectangle.
Sometimes the children have tried to match the blocks to the cards. Other times we used them as a backdrop in our block play area at preschool to inspire different building.
Altogether there are 17 different colourful cards ready to challenge your students to build, to make, to create with their own block collection!
These printable cards are a digital download. They are an A4 sized PDF file which means you will need Adobe Acrobat or similar PDF reading software to open the file. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
The blocks I used to create these are no longer available for purchase but these challenge cards can still serve as inspiration for any set of blocks or use them to create your own set to match a new set of wooden blocks. That would make a perfect gift idea for any child! We love this natural wooden block set too!
These printable cards are a digital download. They are an A4 sized PDF file which means you will need Adobe Acrobat or similar PDF reading software to open the file. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
The blocks I used to create these are no longer available for purchase but these challenge cards can still serve as inspiration for any set of blocks or use them to create your own set to match a new set of wooden blocks. That would make a perfect gift idea for any child! We love this natural wooden block set too!
You can download your FREE copy of our block prompt cards here.
