A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Block Zoo


During Christmas vacation, when the kids started to get bored, I pulled out a set of new blocks .  


Eli later built a copy of the picture on the cover of the box:  


Now I don't often do the "directed play" thing.  I much prefer to let them do their own thing most of the time.  But the older kids had a game they used to play years ago, and I thought it would be fun to introduce it to the younger kids.  


I told the kids, "Bring down 3 small animals, and meet me in the playroom."


Then I got out all our blocks, not just the new set.  

Several years ago, we gave away our accumulation of blocks to a woman who was setting up a daycare.  Somehow, we've managed to replace them.  


Most of the animals brought down were Beanie Babies, but this game would work with any small stuffed animals or Safari Toobs or Schleich animals or whatever little animals you have around the house.


Then I told them to build a zoo for their animals.  


It's always interesting to watch the group dynamics and see who chooses what, and what alliances form.  


It was decided that Hannah's bear and Sam's bear could inhabit the same cage at the zoo.  


Hannah, after making an enclosure for her rooster, asked me, "Mom, what does this thing eat?"  She then tried to swipe some of Jack's little yellow blocks from his pathway to use as corn to feed her rooster.  


Brianna set up a zoo train and a moat.


Oh, look, there's swiping.  Yeah, that didn't go over well.  She already had all the little purple blocks.  I wish I'd thought to suggest she trade some of the purple ones for some yellow "corn" instead.  


And what was Lukey doing during all this?  Rocking and tapping his beads.  He actually got a little lamby in his stocking, since the texture page he pays the most attention to in touchy feely books is the lamb one.  But he's shown no interest in the stuffed animal at all.  He's big on the familiar.  


So there you go.  A simple suggestion, using things you probably already have around the house, that could potentially keep your kids entertained quite a while.  What's nice, is that with a group of kids, you can set the game in motion and then wander off to do other things, and they continue to play.  Maybe this directed play thing is not so bad after all.  

Linking up with:

Top Mommy Blogs - Click To Vote! Thanks for clicking for us!

8 comments:

  1. Cute zoo! Hope all the animals were comfortable. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They seemed to be! Accommodations varied a bit, but I didn't hear any of them complaining. ;)

      Delete
  2. So cute. I love this idea. Just curious, mine are still kind of small--9, 5 and 3. I'll give them this idea tomorrow, but what do you do with a little one who likes to knock down everyone else's work? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think 3 is old enough to know that's not okay. Katie is 3, and she has a hard time sharing when it comes to blocks, but she'd understand the concept of not knocking over what somebody else is playing with. Maybe you'd need to be more involved to monitor that? Or, as an alternative, you could offer her pictures of animals to color to make "signs" for the cages? That way, she's still involved, but not *building*. Good luck!

      Delete
  3. Nice game. For my little one, we chose an animal and build a habitat for it using blocks. It is so much fun to see. For example we once had a cow so we used the green blocks for trees and grass and the red ones for the barn. It was so much fun to see the differences between the younger and older one.Blocks are bar far one of the best toys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a great idea! I'll have Hannah pick out all the green blocks to use as bamboo for her new pandas. :)

      Delete
  4. It looks like this was a ton of fun for your family!


    Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! :) It's always fun to stumble across a new linkup!

      Delete