Brick classroom & Block classroom: preschoolers’ spatial and architectural design skills during constructive play

Date

2024-01-01

Author

Akdemir, Kadriye
Sevimli Çelik, Serap

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Constructive play, where children manipulate materials to create and build something, is a prevalent form of play in preschool settings. Children can greatly benefit from engaging in constructive play, specifically by developing spatial and architectural skills. Therefore, the current study aim was to examine ways preschoolers used spatial and architectural design skills during constructive play. Participants were observed via the Spatial–Geometric–Architectural (SPAGAR) Coding System and included 31 preschool children aged five-year- old with 16 boys (M = 63.06, SD = 2.112) and 15 girls (M = 62.93, SD = 1.907) from two separate classrooms. While children in one classroom (brick classroom) played with plastic snap-together bricks, children in the other classroom (block classroom) played with non-interlocking wood blocks. Findings indicated that children’s construction-based designs varied. Children who played with blocks usually created designs that included line symmetry, patterning, engineering, and trabeated constructions (i.e. using horizontal beams). Whereas children who played with building bricks created designs that commonly included line and plane symmetry. Although, the types of play materials could have influenced children’s design preferences, children in both classrooms were found to engage in constructive play where various spatial and architectural design skills were practiced over the 10-day observation period.

Subject Keywords

architectural skills, constructive play, design, observation, Preschoolers, spatial skills

URI

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85190956868&origin=inward
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/109666

Collections

Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Article