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Social skills are some of the most important and foundational skills we will teach our students. We already know this! As teachers, we are working tirelessly to reach IEP goals, benchmarks, learning standards, and curricular goals. Some of those include social skills already, but even if they don’t, we know how necessary they are! What if we were able to take some weight off our shoulders and set up natural opportunities for social skills to be developed? We could anticipate some natural challenges in these opportunities and prepare supports for students ahead of time! There’s many ways to do this, but one that I personally love is a block center. Yep, just good old fashioned blocks. I have watched blocks be fun and successful from day care to 4th grade! It’s possible! Here’s some of the fruit that can come from a simple block center in your classroom.
Turn taking
When children play with blocks together, they can take turns building and adding to structures. This helps them learn about waiting their turn and sharing. If students are already exposed to games, which they likely are, they can be using some of those learned skills to enhance their turn taking in other areas. This is also a great way to generalize skills.
Collaboration
Blocks can be used to encourage children to work together to build a structure or solve a problem. This helps them learn how to communicate and collaborate effectively with their peers. We know that collaboration is a skill that carries through our life for…ever! Without collaborative skills, kids will struggle all throughout school. Block ideas will differ between students (are we building a castle or a parking garage?) and collaborating to make the magic happen is going to naturally pop up.
Leadership
Children can take on leadership roles when working with blocks, such as guiding their peers in building a structure or coming up with a plan for their project. This can help them develop leadership skills, other formative social skills, and learn how to guide and support others. Often we see kids show bossiness over leadership, as bossiness is often easier at young ages. Kids are still developing from being highly ego centric, and bossiness typically leans towards self desire. If you’re looking for more explicit ways to teach leadership, look no further! This leader vs. boss lesson kit is really engaging and so fun for kids.
Conflict resolution
When children are working with blocks, conflicts may arise over who gets to use a certain piece or how to build a structure. These conflicts can be used as opportunities to teach children how to resolve conflicts peacefully and effectively. If you’ve followed me for awhile, you know I wrote a children’s book in 2020 called Roaring Mad Riley. The big problem is this – a block conflict! If you haven’t read it yet or snagged it for your bookshelf, it goes without saying, you need to! It’s a staple in kids books on social skilsl and coping skills. (And yes, I’m biased)
Empathy
Empathy is a key word when we think of social skills. As children work with their peers on block projects, they can learn to consider others’ perspectives and think about how their actions may affect others. This can help them develop empathy and understanding towards others. This will likely require some prompting and teaching with younger students, but I promise you, they can grasp this!
Block ideas
There are endless types of blocks on the market, here’s a few faves of mine!
Earthtiles – Organic, really beautiful magnetic blocks! They have an upfront cost that’s a little high, but they are literally heirloom quality. You’ll use them for YEARS and years.
Unifix cubes – Believe it or not, kids LOVE building with these. I didn’t realize how creative kids could really get until I saw it in action. Making spinning tops, bridges, and more! You also likely have a lot of these hanging around your school.
Wooden blocks – This set from the amazing Melissa and Doug (who doesn’t love them?!) is super affordable and just classic wooden blocks. I think the simpler the better, the kids will make the magic happen.
