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All About STEM Learning

Posted by Brian Semling on Mar 19th 2018

Award winning Strictly Briks is a toy company that offers unique, engaging products that help children with STEM learning and skill sets. Surely you have heard this terminology, but what is STEM and why is it important?

What is STEM?

Originating in Eastern Europe, STEM learning is a relatively new method in parenting and teaching that centers around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills. Although the methods are still in their infancy, government and university studies report positively on STEM Theory. Children as early as two years old all the way through high school can benefit from and grasp STEM learning.

STEM covers more than science and construction skills (although those are important, too). Building games/kits, puzzles, coding games, block toys, and designing games are all considered STEM toys. These toys help children develop sharper spatial skills, motor skills, language skills, problem solving, and even the skill to visualize three dimensional objects.

How can STEM benefit children?

With free-play building blocks like Strictly Briks, kids have to think of what they want to create, analyze the pieces in front of them, and figure out how the individual pieces relate to one another to create a bigger product as a whole. Strictly Briks encourages free creation with no instructions and our 1000 Piece Deluxe Brik Set is perfect for this kind of skill-building. Kids use logical, “mechanical” skills to construct their own creative idea into something real right in front of them.

The greatest influencer in the development of STEM skills is experience.

Studies show that children who spend more time playing with puzzles and building toys score higher on tests that ask kids to transform 2-dimensional shapes. For example, children that play with building blocks may be faster at recognizing when a letter is either rotated or “mirrored.”  Spatial skills are improved by play; the more your child plays, the more skills they acquire. Fun and getting smarter—what’s better than that?

Consistent block play is linked with math skills and divergent problem solving. Studies show that more complex play in preschool can lead to better math skills in high school. Divergent problems have more than one solution, just as block play has many ways to create. If a teacher tells her students to create a house with block play, there is a high chance that no student will create the house in the exact same way.

There are actually studies that support children becoming friendlier and more communicative when engaged in block play. Children will cooperate and collaborate together moreso. Likewise, block toys like Strictly Briks may inspire language development.

Overall, STEM learning with Strictly Briks toys can only help a child develop in a vast number of ways. Strictly Briks is a mind-building toy that inspires creativity, growth, and education—get them today!