Materials
A firm, flat surface, such as a table top, a tray, or the floor
Small, easy-for-a-toddler-to-handle blocks
A ruler (optional)
Directions
Give your child a small pile of blocks. They can be all the same color or not, but initially, they should all be the same size. Give yourself a similar pile of blocks. Show your child how to carefully place one block squarely on top of another, until you have a tower 4 or 5 blocks high. Invite you child to try building a tower just as high as yours. You can place the ruler on top of both towers (if they’re close enough) to compare whether they are the same height. If one tower is shorter, let that tower’s builder catch up. Continue building until someone’s tower falls down. We have a rule that ONLY the person who built something may knock it down, so if you’re building towers with more than one child, you may want to make a similar rule.
Tower building is a great exercise in fine-motor control, perception, persistence, and hand-eye coordination. For older children you can extend the activity by asking your child to make a pattern with the blocks or to count how many blocks they used.