The Block Book

For engaging children's hands, minds, and imaginations, no tool surpasses blocks. 

Engrossed in building with blocks, the child is a mathematician, scientist, architect. stage designer, and storyteller. And as children build together, they stretch and grow as problem solvers and collaborators.

The Block Book was the first comprehensive book to explore the values and uses of unit blocks for extending children's growth and development. Using blocks builds self-confidence, enhances social skill, facilitates vocabulary development, and it stimulates eye-hand-body coordination, which are so important for the development of reading skills. As they build with blocks, children discover, invent, imagine, and construct a fuller understanding of their world. 

This book, a classic in early childhood education, has been expanded and updated so that teachers and parents can discover exciting possibilities for the effective use of blocks. The time-tested understandings that have made The Block Book a classic are still here, refined and extended with new material that makes the third edition better than ever.

Elisabeth S. Hirsch, Ph.D., was a teacher of preschoolers in independent private schools and parent cooperatives for many years. She was director of a parent cooperative and a day care center.