Excellerations® Foam Wooden Blocks – Set of 80

Description

The Excellerations Foam Wooden Blocks offer all the educational benefits of traditional wooden blocks with an added layer of safety and comfort. This 80-piece set features high-density foam construction that mimics the appearance of real wood while providing soft, flexible surfaces that won’t hurt little hands or damage furniture during enthusiastic building sessions.

Each block is crafted with precise edges that allow for stable stacking and detailed construction projects. The lightweight yet durable foam material makes these blocks perfect for children who are still developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Unlike traditional wooden blocks, these won’t create loud crashes when towers tumble down, making them ideal for quiet learning environments or apartments where noise is a concern.

The set provides excellent value for homeschooling families, offering years of educational play across multiple children and age ranges. The foam construction means these blocks will maintain their shape and appearance even after countless building sessions, drops, and creative adventures.

How Homeschoolers Can Use This Product

Early Learning and Motor Skill Development

These foam blocks excel at supporting fundamental developmental milestones. Toddlers and preschoolers can safely practice grasping, stacking, and balancing without the fear of injury from falling blocks. The lightweight design allows even very young children to manipulate the pieces independently, building confidence alongside coordination skills.

Parents can create simple activities like tower-building competitions, sorting games by size and shape, or basic pattern-making exercises. The soft material encourages experimentation since children aren’t afraid of the blocks falling or making noise.

Mathematics Integration

Transform abstract math concepts into hands-on learning experiences. Use the blocks for counting activities, basic addition and subtraction problems, and creating visual representations of numbers. Children can sort blocks by various attributes, create patterns, and explore early geometry concepts through building.

For older students, the blocks work well for demonstrating fractions, volume, and area concepts. Students can build rectangular prisms and calculate their dimensions, or use the blocks to understand multiplication through array-building activities.

Science and Engineering Applications

Encourage budding engineers to test structural concepts using these safe building materials. Students can experiment with different foundation types, explore balance and stability, and test which shapes create the strongest towers. The forgiving foam material means failed experiments simply result in soft collapses rather than scattered pieces and potential injuries.

Physics concepts like gravity, momentum, and cause-and-effect become tangible when children build elaborate structures and observe how different designs affect stability. Challenge older students to build bridges, cantilevers, or earthquake-resistant structures.

Creative Storytelling and Geography

The blocks serve as excellent props for storytelling and imaginative play. Children can build castles for fairy tale reenactments, create cityscapes for adventure stories, or construct farms and neighborhoods for role-playing activities. This type of creative construction naturally develops spatial reasoning and planning skills.

For geography lessons, students can build 3D representations of landforms, create maps of their local area, or construct historical landmarks they’re studying. The blocks help make abstract geographical concepts more concrete and memorable.

Art and Design Projects

Beyond basic building, these blocks can be incorporated into art activities. Children can use them as stamps with washable paint, create patterns and designs, or use them as building blocks for larger sculptural projects when combined with other materials.

The uniform shapes make them excellent tools for teaching symmetry, balance, and basic design principles. Students can document their creations through photography, creating a portfolio of their architectural and artistic growth over time.

Practical Homeschool Tips

Store the blocks in a large, shallow container that allows children to see all pieces at once, encouraging more complex building projects. Consider designating a specific building area with a large mat or designated floor space where constructions can remain standing between lessons.

These blocks work particularly well for mixed-age learning environments since they can challenge older children with complex building tasks while providing safe, appropriate play for younger siblings. The quiet nature of foam blocks makes them suitable for use during another child’s lesson time or while babies are napping.

Consider photographing impressive constructions before cleanup time to preserve children’s work and track their developing skills over time. This documentation can become part of their learning portfolio and provide encouragement during challenging learning days.