Classic Alphabet Blocks

 One of the first references to Alphabet Nursery Blocks was made by English philosopher John
Locke, in 1693, made the statement that "dice and playthings, with letters on them to teach
children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience.

       Toy blocks (also building bricks, building blocks, or simply blocks) are wooden, plastic, or foam pieces of various shapes (square, cylinder, arch, triangle, etc.) and colors that are used as construction toys. Sometimes toy blocks depict letters of the alphabet like the standardized from our family collections shown above and below.

• Alphabet Blocks Inducted in 2003

Witold Rybczynski has found that the earliest mention of building bricks for children appears in Maria
and R.L. Edgeworth's Practical Education (1798). Called "rational toys", blocks were intended to
teach children about gravity and physics, as well as spatial relationships that allow them to see
how many different parts become a whole.

The first large-scale production of blocks was in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn by S. L. Hill,
who patented "ornamenting wood" a patent related to painting or coloring a block surface prior to the
 embossing process and then adding another color after the embossing to have multi-colored blocks.

What can children learn while playing with blocks:

• Motor skills: toy blocks build strength in a child's fingers and hands, and improve eye-hand coordination. They also help educate children in different shapes.
• Socialization: block play encourages children to make friends and cooperate, and is often one of the first experiences a child has playing with others. Blocks are a benefit for the children because they encourage interaction and imagination. Creativity can be a combined action that is important for social play.
• Academic training: children can potentially develop their vocabularies as they learn to describe sizes, shapes, and positions.
• Math concepts: are developed through the process of grouping, adding, and subtracting, particularly with standardized blocks, such as unit blocks. 
• Interaction and play: with gravity, balance, and geometry learned from stacking toy blocks also develops basic survival skills.
• Creative thinking: children receive creative stimulation by making their own designs with blocks.

       In 1837 Friedrich Fröbel invented a preschool educational institution Kindergarten. For that, he designed ten of the 20 Froebel Gifts on building blocks principles.

• The Means And Ways of Occupation In The Kindergarten