Family Building Night

After the rush of the holidays, the lull in January can be a welcome break.  With cold, wet weather it is also a time of lots of family time indoors.  Looking for something different to spend time as a family?  Try a family building night.

If you look through the closets in our house it is clear that building toys are a favorite.  At times it is a unsafe to walk through the house at night for fear of injury from the stepping on a stray lego.  It seems our kids play with legos in all their free time - do we really need a night dedicated to building together?  You might be surprised. 

Family building night can center around blocks, legos, recycled objects or a mix of supplies. The key ingredient is the time set aside and the focused attention. Building is fun.  I think that's the best part for me.  When I build with my kids I'm not really doing it for them.  I'm enjoying the activity and that enthusiasm and engagement is contagious.  When I am engaged in the same activity, I am also much more tuned in to what they might be doing.  So the exclamation of "look what I made..." is met with much more focused atttention than other times when they are building and I am making dinner of focused on another task.  It is also a fun time to share my own discoveries.  There are many things adults do better than kids but when it comes to play and building with blocks we are basically at the same level. Seeing my husband and I engage and explore is important modeling for our kids. And trust me it is just as frustrating for an adult to have that tall, tall tower come crashing down just as you add the final layer.  We can model persistence and frustration tolerance for our kids while practicing it ourselves. 

We take pictures of the towers we are really proud of such as the one that extended above my son's head when he was standing up.  Other times we will draw our buildings of find a special shelf to display a favorite lego creation.  The next building night may begin with a "smash-up night" so that old creations are taken apart for new loose parts. 

In building kids are working on spacial intelligence and so much more.  There is a bumper sticker on my car that says "The Arts Build Community," part of a broader initiative from Virginians for the Arts

Family building night can build and foster memories, connections and a sense of shared accomplishment along with the towers, tunnels and creations and contraptions.  Give it a try and share your favorite building experience here.

Kathryn Horn Coneway is the director of Art at the Center, a studio lab for children and families in Alexandria, VA.  Visit our website www.artatthecenter.org for information on classes and programs.