Why Our Blocks Are Different

Wooden blocks take a terrible pounding over a lifetime and there is no substitute for quality. Community Playthings blocks are softened (rounded) on the edges and corners in order to avoid splinters. There are a sufficient number of rectangles for walls and foundations, but there are also block shapes- triangles arches wedges, and square and round columns.  You can't build anything interesting with rectangles alone.

Children can enjoy these classic toys for years. They will begin to play with blocks at an early age and they will continue playing with them until the age of 9 or 10. Teachers like them because blocks encourage imagination from the inside rather than supplying it from outside. Allowed to play freely, children spontaneously create things ranging from reflective to funny. Blocks are a medium for this kind of expression. Children’s engagement with wooden blocks goes through a number of stages. At the youngest ages, children turn the different shapes in their hands and look at them. They also show them to their parents, learn the names, and develop an interest in how they fit together. After a time, children will begin to sit on the floor and stack them into small towers.

During this period, learning the ideas of balancing, bridging, and bracing is a key accomplishment.  Next, children begin to make walls, and following this, four walls with a roof.  By the age of 3-1/2, children will be able to make taller towers, balance a wider block on top of a narrow one, and can make vaguely identifiable structures like tall buildings.  They also like to make roads and drive small cars on them.  Maybe more important, children from the earliest age are attracted by blocks and their play evolves over the years so that blocks prove to be very appealing to children across different age groups.

The peak age for toy unit blocks is 4-8. Children will often come across these large wooden blocks at quality pre-schools and will want some at home. Unfortunately, the small wooden blocks available in many toyshops are not so effective as they are too light and too small to be stable. Children can build amazing structures if given a wide range of shapes and sizes but the shapes must be substantial enough to stand firmly. Interest in them may decrease a bit after the age of about 9, but many children will take out their wooden blocks on a rainy day, and will frequently help younger brothers and sisters accomplish tasks that they have mastered at an earlier age.

Our Wooden Learning Blocks are made from European Birch from sustainable forests in Europe. Our blocks are not made from Rubberwood.  Rubber wood is soaked in Borates, which is an insecticide. We think that giving children blocks soaked in insecticide is not the right thing to do.