Building toys: the perfect ally to support child's development

Playful yet educational, building toys support the overall development of both young and old. Psychomotor development, spatial understanding, social cooperation, and so much more! Discover all the benefits these assembly games offer children at every age.

It accompanied our childhood, filled our rooms, and occupied our afternoons. In our furthest memories, construction toys are always present, in all their forms, ingrained like a loyal friend. It's no wonder they remain timeless. Thanks to them, children explore, manipulate, and think. And then they start over, endlessly.

Promoting cognitive development and the acquisition of spatial awareness

What do I want to build? How do I get there? What blocks, bricks, magnets, or pieces will I need? How do I assemble them? Where do I start? These are all questions that swarm in a child's brain when faced with a building toy. While the activity seems simple and natural at first glance, it requires deep thinking and complex cognitive skills.

Observe a child playing with small interlocking bricks, or with giant modules to connect. They play, invent stories. Most importantly, they think, always anticipating the next step. While playing, they set goals, make plans, and immerse themselves in imaginary worlds that they will try to make more concrete.

Numerous scientific studies have focused on the skills developed during these action sequences. Among the most recent¹, American researchers observed that children – in this case, 4-8 year olds – are quickly capable of using the same reasoning as adults, namely building layer by layer, starting from a base and then progressively stacking. The results: stable and balanced assemblies, from the simplest to the most structured.

Young builders thus demonstrate planning and 3D visualization skills, a logical mind, and a mastery of space, volumes, and even basic geometric notions. It's impossible not to see this as an entertaining introduction to the great science of mathematics.

Children also learn to solve problems². Offering them these games from an early age helps them understand how to transform a simple idea into a tangible achievement. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they make mistakes. All these are opportunities to analyze, elucidate, and develop their creative spirit.

Building to learn to manage emotions and live together

Today's project? A castle, a boat, a bridge over a stream? Allowing children to approach their construction toys autonomously strengthens their self-management, concentration, and attention skills³, as well as their patience and their frustration management. The bridge collapses? Anger rises for a moment. Quickly, it must be rebuilt. Perseverance and resilience are the best lessons one can learn from failure.

Alongside the benefits of independent play, there are the benefits of cooperative play. In a group, you have to cooperate to achieve a common goal, negotiate, and share roles. Among friends, classmates, or siblings, when everyone gathers around the pieces to assemble, cooperation begins. Whether accompanied by hearty laughter or gentle disagreements, it promotes the acquisition of social skills⁴ that will guide children towards well-adjusted adult lives, capable of evolving serenely in society.

How construction toys strengthen coordination and motor skills

Stacking, arranging, leveling. When faced with an assembly game, children undoubtedly improve their motor skills⁵. The smaller the elements used, the more fine motor skills are engaged. For giant module kits, the amplitude of movements required for manipulation involves more muscle groups. This bodily awakening is of major importance, from the earliest stages of life, for learning how to exercise balance and coordination.

For generations raised in front of touch tablets, these skills are diminishing. A 2024 survey in the United States⁶ reveals the sad reality: young kindergarteners are encountering increasing difficulties with tasks involving fine motor skills, such as holding scissors or pencils correctly. More specifically, 77% of questioned teachers estimate that children have more difficulty performing these tasks compared to same-aged classes they taught 5 years ago. It's hard not to see this as an effect of the pandemic and lockdown, which, for many, resulted in mainly digital activities.

Holding a pen or tying shoes are basic skills that are initiated from early childhood through practical activities. A simple example? Construction toys, whatever they may be. Holding a cube between one's fingers, balancing a roof, stacking pillars, coordinating hands to interlock two walls are all small feats that indirectly prepare for future acquisitions, such as writing.

Another advantage: building toys combine visual processing and motor execution. In other words, they engage hand-eye coordination⁴, synchronizing sight and movement control. Visually guided dexterity is essential in everyday life.

Assembly and language keys

Play, in all its forms, is an invaluable tool for progressing in verbal communication. An experiment conducted in China⁷ showed that children exposed to themed construction activities develop their vocabulary and comprehension more. The most versatile assembly games thus offer unlimited opportunities, whether to delve into the world of the Wild West, discover the wonders of aeronautics, or explore the world of piracy... For little and big dreamers with infinite imagination, everything that can be built brings its share of new words.

Time to act: place this module "above" to create a roof, or "next to" to extend a wall, or even "underneath" to serve as a floor. Then: stick one's head "through" a porthole or window, go "around" the rocket. Examples of spatial vocabulary are abundant with construction games. It even seems, according to a study conducted in the United States⁸, that interactions with adults help enrich the activity while developing abstract thinking and complex spatial language. Combining autonomous moments and guided activities therefore constitutes the perfect combination for introducing and then enhancing vocabulary related to space.

If you're wondering at what age to start offering these types of toys, the answer is simple. As early as possible! From 18 months⁹, toddlers who play with blocks show a better language score.

 

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