Solve-it-Blocks (Large School Version)

What is it

Solve-It-Blocks is a fantastic challenge for children to develop their logical thinking skills, and also offers a great opportunity for them to learn how to work as a team.

Children start with 9 giant soft play cubes (about 1 foot cubed), with different colours, shapes, flags, numbers and letters on each side. The aim is to build a wall with these blocks, which matches a 3×3 grid pattern they are given. But it’s not easy – there are 3,656,994,324,480 possible combinations!

The pattern grids offer different levels of difficulty, and the game is also very adaptable – for example, 5 year olds can use their imaginations to build whatever they want, while 8 year olds can practice instructing their group on how to build the wall to match the pattern. However they’re used, Solve-It-Blocks help children build loads of useful skills, and they enjoy doing it too!

Have a look at the app version of the puzzle as well.

What our experts think

Solve-it-Blocks is an excellent idea; the children loved playing it, and it was easy to see that they were developing loads of skills at the same time. They became fully immersed in the game (we saw a group of 4-5 year olds play for over half an hour, forgetting about their break-time!), and really enjoyed moving about and thinking hard. We saw children as young as 5 practicing leadership, communication and team working skills while building the wall together. The children were really good at thinking about and discussing ideas, to achieve their goals and solve the problems they came across. As the blocks can have similar sides (e.g. there may be one with a circle inside a triangle, and one with a square inside a triangle) the children must pay close attention to the pattern or the verbal instructions they are following, and give specific instructions for the rest of the group to follow.

It would be even better if...

The teachers loved how easily the game could be adapted to focus on different skills and topics – for example, only allowing one child to speak allowed her to practice being in a leadership role. It would be good to have instructions for different game methods such as this available for all teachers to use.