Guidance to Play
When you watch children play with Imagination Playground, your first question may be: what are they doing? But the better question may be: what are they learning? Here you’ll learn how to spot examples of productive play and see what children of different ages can learn. The more you understand what you see, the more you’ll realize that Imagination Playground blocks provide opportunities for so much more than play.
Enclosures and Barriers
Children naturally create more intimate spaces within large spaces that define “being in the play.
Gear to Play
The two types of gears in the Classic Block set afford different problems to solve.
Bring Fabric into Play
Fabric is the perfect complement to add decoration to the rigid blocks.
Parts as a Path or Course
These games create opportunities to negotiate rules among themselves.
Parts that Move
The potential movement of parts adds interest and story to the child’s play.
Parts to Wear or Wield
Children go beyond building, treating the blocks as props with symbolic status.
Parts Used to Accent
When a child adds an accent, she reveals in what way she thought
the structure was incomplete.
Stacks, Stairs, and Intervals
Structures with repeated intervals require a form of mathematical thinking.
The Fall-Safe Factor of Foam
Finding the fall limits of structures help children think about the dynamics of structure.
The Growth of Symmetry
Some research suggests that the symmetrical structures embody
a form of mathematical thinking.
Multiple Uses of Cylinders
Of all the Loose Parts, the cylinder-shaped plug has a strong identity appeal.
The Role of the Ball
Balls transform the static beauty of a structure into a system of causes that direct the movement of the ball.