Discussion: blocks and sensory play in early childhood
Discuss two reasons blocks and sensory activities are important in an early childhood setting, and identify the academics a child learns from block and sensory play, drawing on chapters 8 and 9 of Bullard's Creating Environments for Learning.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 14, 2026
Answering the sceptic in the prompt
The prompt supplies its own audience, and using it sharpens the whole post: parents and administrators see blocks and sand and conclude that children are just playing and not learning. Write to that person. Choose two reasons and make them substantive rather than a list of developmental domains. The strongest pair is usually, first, that block and sensory play is how young children build concepts they cannot yet receive through language — balance, volume, quantity, cause and effect and spatial relationships are constructed by acting on materials, which is what the constructivist tradition the textbook sits in actually claims; and second, that this play is where self-regulation and social competence are practised, because block areas generate negotiation, turn-taking, shared planning and the recovery from a collapsed tower out of which persistence is actually built. Two reasons developed with real evidence will always beat five reasons merely named.
The second question is the one that convinces the sceptic, so make the academics explicit and name them the way a curriculum document would. Mathematics is the richest seam: counting, one-to-one correspondence, measurement and comparison, symmetry, patterning, fractions when a child works out that two of one block equal one of another, and early geometry through shape composition. Science follows: prediction and testing, gravity, balance, stability, and the properties of materials in sensory play, where volume and conservation are learned by pouring rather than by being told. Then literacy — vocabulary, oral language, symbolic representation as a block stands for a building, signs and labels children make for their structures, and the narrative that runs through dramatic block play. Add engineering and design thinking, and fine-motor development for handwriting readiness. Close on the teacher's role, since the same materials teach far less without documentation, provocation and the questions an adult asks.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Argue the developmental case for block and sensory play to a sceptical audience.
- 02Connect play with materials to concept formation.
- 03Map play to named curriculum areas rather than to general learning.
- 04Identify the adult's role in making the learning visible.
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Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01Two reasons why blocks and sensory activities are important in an early childhood setting.
- 02Evidence or theory supporting each reason.
- 03The academics a child can learn from block play.
- 04The academics a child can learn from sensory play.
- 05Specific examples of each type of learning.
- 06Reference to chapters 8 and 9 of the assigned text, cited in APA format.
Two reasons, then the academics
The objection to answer
Parents and administrators who see play and infer no learning.
Reason one: concepts are built by acting
Balance, volume, quantity and space constructed through materials.
Reason two: self-regulation and social competence
Negotiation, turn-taking, shared planning, persistence after collapse.
Mathematics and science in the block area
Counting, measurement, symmetry, patterning, prediction, stability.
Literacy and language
Vocabulary, symbolic representation, signs and narrative.
What the teacher does
Provocation, documentation, questioning and making learning visible.
The text, and the evidence behind it
Recommended databases
- Assigned text (Bullard, Creating Environments for Learning)
- NAEYC
- ERIC
- Harvard Center on the Developing Child
Search sequence
- 1.Read chapters 8 and 9 and note the framework the author uses.
- 2.Read the NAEYC position on observing and documenting children's learning.
- 3.Find evidence linking block play to spatial and mathematical outcomes.
- 4.Note what the developmental science says about play and executive function.
- 5.Choose your two reasons before writing anything else.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
DAP: Observing, Documenting, and Assessing Children's Development and Learning
National Association for the Education of Young Children · 2022
How the learning inside play is made visible to a sceptical adult.
- 02
The Science Behind Early Childhood Development
Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University · 2024
The developmental science underlying the concept-formation argument.
- 03
Biological and social determinants of early childhood development assessed with ASQ-3
Frontiers in Pediatrics · 2026
Evidence on the domains a play-based environment is expected to move.
- 04
Child Development
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf · 2023
Milestone context for what a preschool child is developmentally doing.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Listing developmental domains instead of giving two developed reasons.
- Claiming learning happens without saying what is learned.
- Treating academics as literacy and numeracy only.
- Writing as though the sceptical parent were not the audience.
- Ignoring sensory play and answering only about blocks.
- Leaving out the teacher's role, which is what makes the learning visible.
Submission checklist
- Exactly two reasons are given and each is developed.
- Each reason is supported from the text or the literature.
- Mathematics, science and literacy learning are all named with examples.
- Sensory play is addressed separately from block play.
- The teacher's role in documentation and questioning appears.
- The assigned chapters are cited in APA format.
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.