Playing and Learning with Poleidoblocs

Video based on research conducted at Homerton College, Cambridge, 1998, for The Lowenfeld Trust, by Julia Anghileri and Sarah Baron 1998.

Video is about the use of Poleidoblocs, invented and introduced into play therapy by Margaret Lowenfeld in the 1950s as a way of portraying basic mathematical relationships in a medium attractive to children. Poleidoblocs are designed for children to gain sensual and visual images of the mathematics behind them. They are widely used in schools. The research by Anghileri in this video focuses on how poleidoblocs allow children to explore mathematical relationships, describing some of the ways children have been observed developing skills and understanding throught working with the bricks. Video shows children presented with a box and learning ideas of sorting by shape, colour, size and function; balancing and intuitive measurement; exploring aspects of stability involving parallel, horizontal and sloping faces; developing understanding of symmetry; transferring form 2D to 3D learning; typical examples of how understanding develops and the increasing complexity of structures. Features some named children playing and learning. Stresses the importance of poleidoblocs in the contemporary National Curriculum.

Children in the video are from several infants and primary schools in Cambridgeshire.

1998

1 VHS videocassette (7 mins, 30 secs )

Barcode: 22503563159

The Lowenfeld Trust, Homerton College, CUMIS