Progression in Block Play
How much time do you spend in your block area?
Is this an area where your role is mostly settling disputes (“I need that one!” “They knocked my tower down!”) or enforcing rules (“You need to put the blocks away now.” “No throwing blocks.” “That’s too tall.”)?
Thinking about the skills children are developing as they build will help you to interact in a way that moves children’s learning on. It could lead to fewer disagreements and times you feel you have to get involved for safety reasons.
When we’re planning our environment and working out how to support our children’s play, it’s important to think about their current skills and those they’re developing. Blocks are an open-ended resource that can support characteristics of learning and development in all areas. This makes this a space where it is valuable for you to spend some time.
As children are likely to use them throughout the early years foundation stage, and could keep learning from them into key stage one (if they get the chance to play with them), it’s helpful to pause and think about progression.
Block play has been the subject of research for well over 100 years. This research has led to a few different suggestions of the stages of block play. The seven stages first outlined by Harriet Johnson in 1933, in the book The art of block building, have been used for many years to describe the way children’s block play changes over time.[1]She observed children between the ages of two and seven and used these observations to identify how their play changed.
She suggested that older children with little experience playing with blocks passed through the same stages as those who started playing with blocks earlier. She highlighted that every child is unique, and although the stages were present fairly consistently, there is no set time that children need to explore each stage and sometimes these overlap.
I know this book is nearly 90 years old, but the stages of block play are really helpful when thinking about common play behaviours with blocks.
When you look at more recent research you can see links with Johnson’s progression.
A 2020 review of scales for measuring block play, led to a model of skills which sit beneath block play, looking at these alongside the progression can help you think about how you can support individual children’s learning and development in the block area. In this review, block play was found to have cognitive and performance elements each with four underlying capacities children needed to develop to successfully build.[2]
Cognitive - spatial ability, abstract reasoning, representational thinking and numeracy
Performance - constructive and manipulative ability, initiation and execution, adaptiveness in material use, integration of play behaviour[2]
When you look at Johnson’s progression you can see how children's cognitive, physical and social skills come together as they progress through the stages. Looking at these might help you to think about where your children are now, and decide when some more resources or interactions might be useful to support their development:
Stage One - Exploring Blocks
Children pick them up, carry them from place to place, they might put them together but the arrangement of blocks is a bit random.
What children need…
Time and space to explore the blocks, move them to different places, and guidance about block play rules in your setting.
Stage Two - Towers and Lines
Children arrange blocks into towers and walls, they place them side-by-side or one on top of the other.
What children need…
Space to make long lines of blocks and enough room to build a tower without someone walking past being enough to knock it down. Help to keep buildings steady and support to manage the frustration and disappointment when building is difficult.
If possible enough blocks for children to build their own towers and walls, simple conversations about rules. Perhaps a rule that you can only knock down a tower you have built yourself or a no knocking down buildings rule - decide what works for your children and setting.
Stage Three - Bridges
Children begin to use blocks to bridge gaps, they position and balance blocks to bridge the gap between two towers.
What children need…
Support to steady their structures, a good-sized block area where they can play without their bridges being knocked down.
Time to keep trying, to experiment with different arrangements and work out the best way to make a bridge.
Stage Four - Enclosures
Children use blocks to fully enclose a space.
What children need...
A set of blocks with different sizes that are multiples of each other - for example, two smaller blocks are the same size as one larger block.
Time to try again and again until they successfully build an enclosure - then time to practise this until they know they can build it every time.
Stage Five - Patterns
Children’s buildings begin to show more thought and patterns, you might notice symmetry or repeated structures.
What children need...
Lots of blocks so they can create structures with repeated patterns. Interested adults who don’t interfere or over-direct, but show an interest and comment about the patterns they’ve noticed.
Stage Six - Naming and Representing
Children give a name to their constructions - what they’ve built might not look like the thing they name. The children know that their buildings can represent objects, they might start to use blocks in their pretend play.
What children need...
Interested adults who talk to them about what they’ve built and listen to their descriptions. Small world resources, animals, figures and vehicles so the children can use these alongside the blocks as they begin to pretend.
Stage Seven - Representing and Pretending
Children’s pretend play becomes more complex, they build structures linked to their experiences and their games.
What children need…
Resources such as animals, small world figures and vehicles; these could be linked to their current interests.
Lots of experience with stories and pretending so they have a rich variety of fantasy worlds to bring into their building and play.
Time to talk to each other and agree which stories that they will tell.
Now with the progression in mind, why not have a look at where your children are up today?
References:
[1] Johnson, H.M. (1933). The art of block building. The John Day Company.
[2] Tian, M., Luo, T., & Cheung, H. (2020). The development and measurement of block construction in early childhood: A review. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 38(6), 767-782.
Fantastic article! It is so interesting to see the children (and sometimes adults) develop through the stages!