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How Do Unit Blocks Help Children Learn?
积木块是如何帮助孩子学习的?
Unit blocks, developed by early childhood educationpioneer Caroline Pratt in 1913,are wooden bricks, incarefully chosen sizes and shapes, found inclassrooms in America.Friedrich Frobel the originatorof kindergarten education, who believed in the valueof play to shape behaviour and aid in children'sintellectual and emotional growth. How do unitblocks help children learn.
单元块是由幼儿教育的先驱卡罗琳·普拉特于1913年发明的，是一种木制的积木，大小和形状都经过了精心挑选，在过去的一个世纪里，一直存在于美国的课堂中。弗里德里希·福禄培尔是幼儿教育的鼻祖，他相信这些单元块在塑造儿童行为和帮助儿童智力和情感发展上所发挥的价值。
Frobel spent the first half of the 19th century tinkering with the oddball notion that even veryyoung children could learn scientific, artistic and natural principles simply by playing withvarious physical objects. This was a big departure from the idea of learning via adult-ledactivities. Frobel's principles were widely adopted after his death in 1852, the idea of usingconcrete objects to establish a basis for later abstract knowledge remained at the centre ofthis approach.
在19世纪上半叶，福禄培尔一直摆弄着一个古怪的想法：通过玩弄各种不同的实体物件，即使很小的孩子也可以学习科学、艺术和自然原理。这与通过成人引导的活动进行学习的观点大相径庭。福禄培尔在1852年去世，他的原则被广泛采用，以具体对象为基础而建立起来的抽象思维的观点成为了这种方法的核心。
Educational theorists cite a laundry list of the benefits that children derive from playing withunit blocks. The different shapes of unit blocks lay the foundations for basic maths andgeometry. Balance and collapse teach the nature of gravity. Ramps and columns can be usedto make simple levers and fulcrums. The need to place blocks carefully develops hand-eye co-ordination. In fact, multiple studies over several decades back up these claims, with somefinding that children who play with blocks significantly outperform those who do not, not justin infancy but over their entire academic careers.
教育理论家列举了孩子玩弄积木块的一系列好处。不同形状的块为数学和几何学习奠定了基础。平衡和倒塌可以讲授重力的性质，坡道和圆柱可以用来制作简单的杠杆和支点。孩子们需要仔细的放置木块，这可以培养孩子们的手眼的协调能力。事实上，过去几十年的研究都支持了这些说法。一些研究发现，玩积木的孩子明显优于那些不玩积木的孩子，不仅只是在起步阶段，而是在整个学术生涯中。