Blocks Do Not Come With Instructions
As children play, wondering begins. Exploration, critical thinking, imagining and designing, children start experimenting with aesthetics and engineering as soon as they are given inspirational materials.
At Wondering child, our goal is to guide children into deep play through pretend or creation, two of the best sources for letting the wondering take over. The shift from doing and building to wondering is what Wondering Child is all about.
For most of the last ten years I worked as a nanny. Those years taught me more about children than I learned raising my own two kids. Nannying children relieved me of the long game of having to raise adults. It was much more about Be Here Now and Play! I am proud to say that a six year old, five minutes after meeting me, told me I was the oldest child he had ever met. (I was more than 60 at the time.)
One time I was called to work for a Chinese family whose two year old had never heard another language. He had never met a white American. The parents fretted. How could they go to work and leave their toddler with someone who spoke no Chinese? How could we possibly get along together? I reassured them it would not be a problem and it wasn’t.
I walked in and saw a race car track that had been built by the parents. The parents held the child and I sat down at the track and started to add to the track. The child squirmed to be released and he sat down next to me and together, wordlessly, we added to the tracks. We incorporated blocks and Legos and dolls and every other toy we could get our hands on. We did this for hours.
At the end of the day the parents marveled that no language had been necessary. As a nanny for many international families, I had learned the language that all children share: the language of TRY, see what happens, create, make, build — with every disaster becoming a starting point to something new. Even as adults, that is the formula for invention.
Early in my nanny days, a family I worked for purchased a large set of colorful blocks that made a complete pyramid when placed in their tray. I fell in love with these blocks so I went online and purchased them for myself. Unfortunately, when they arrived, they were only one-quarter the size of the large blocks but they inspired me none-the-less. I left them on my coffee table and no one, neither child nor adult, could sit there and resist playing with them. If wooden blocks could be visually delicious, these were.
I became the Block Lady and took them to each and every nanny job. Kids loved them for several reasons. One, they offered endless design, building, engineering, even art challenges. Secondly, they loved having all of my attention as they built. I ooh-ed and ahhh-ed over every creation and I took endless photos of their structures, some so sophisticated I defy anyone to tell me they were not art.
The third thing they learned was maybe the most valuable. When they built the biggest tower imaginable and it fell, instead of crying we clapped our hands. The clattering noise of the falling blocks was spectacular and we learned how to build better or at least differently next time. Building a fully completed tower meant using every single block, each precariously sitting one upon another. The Grande Finale was to pull out a key piece to create the most spectacular fall possible. The falling of the tower was built into the play. Parents and siblings gathered around to hear and watch it fall. Everyone clapped and laughed. Watching it crash to bits was a cathartic ending to the tension of building a precariously tall tower.
Every child in my neighborhood played with those blocks. So many times I would hear a tiny knock at my door, open it, and see a small four-year-old who would ask, “Can I come in and play with the blocks?” I rarely said no.
Most of the toys Wondering Child sells fall in the category of creation. We do not sell licensed toys, though kids enjoy them. We do not sell things that encourage watching bings and bangs elicited when your child pushed a switch. Our toys require engagement. If yours already like Legos, they will love our selection of building toys. If your children are artistically creative we have gems for them as well.
No matter what you choose for them, children will be endlessly entertained if you play, too. If your child is having a rough day, you start building first and invite them to play with you. You can chat while you build, and you can connect. Let your child feel your support just by being with them. It matters so much especially in these days when both parents must work.
In all things, children seek connection. You can build your relationship with your kids by making a big deal over their creativity. Take pictures and your child feels proud and supported. This stays with them through adulthood. Ignore them too often and they may lose confidence that lasts into adulthood.
If you are interested in learning more about the value of this kind of play, I recommend that you watch Cas Holman in Netflix’s Season Two of Abstract: The Art of Design. Toy and Industrial designer Cas Holman talks about toys she has been developing for children. Having been left to her own devices through much of her childhood, she said that kids can enjoy a stick, stones and a pond more than most of the toys available today. We agree and thoroughly encourage nature exploration, but we also love toys that take us and our children to the same creative place. In the link attached here: Cas Holman explains that the materials she provides to children do not come with instructions. There is no goal, no expected end result. As Shakespeare once said in an entirely different context, “The PLAY’s the thing.”
Children create the story of what they are building. To paraphrase Cas Holman, If you ask a child to build a car they will build a car. But if you ask them to design a thing that will enable them to get somewhere, their creations might be designed much differently.
Cas Holman, my goals on a much smaller scale are very close to yours. Not only do children exposed to unexpected materials develop a deepened creativity, they teach us how to get back to our own genius, which is the topic of our next blog. Read on!
