Model Building Builds Model Students
Want to build a model student? Then get your child to build models! Model building has many educational benefits and can help in the development of your young one while they’re having a lot of fun.
The National Toy Council has long promoted the educational values of model building, saying that it can foster spatial play and enhance a child’s creativity and dexterity, as well as other cognitive skills such as problem-solving, planning and logical thinking. Here are a few of those benefits in greater depth.
Kids start to build their creative abilities from an early age but it is well-known that they need something specific to focus on to bring it to the fore. Building scale models present them with a lot of opportunities to do this, including how they put it together, how they paint it, or what additional details they may add to the finished model to give it the stamp of their unique personality.
In a physical sense, model building calls on a range of assembly techniques that children pick up while they are putting together a scale model. Each technique they learn helps to develop their hand-eye coordination and dexterity and this is essential for other early learning areas at this stage of their lives, such as handwriting.
With so many different pieces and stages in a model building project, there are also opportunities for them to solve problems. For example, working out which piece goes where? How much glue do I require? Which paints will match the original colours? These are basic problem-solving concepts but when exposed to them at a young age, your children develop the faculties to become excellent critical thinkers in the years ahead.
One of the biggest benefits of scale model building is they are usually replicas of real objects. These objects have interesting stories behind them, and so building a model also becomes a history lesson. As a parent, it’s a great time to find relevant reading matter or go online with your child to research the facts behind the toy model they are building. All sorts of skills are developed here, including reading, comprehension, sourcing information and learning more about the world around them.
Recently, thousands of UK parents were surveyed and it was revealed that millions of children were spending up to 32 hours a week using technology. Of course, this has huge implications for their schooling, family life, socialisation and all other aspects of their overall development. Introducing your children to a hobby like model building is very beneficial. Time spent away from screens improves concentration and long-term communication skills, to name just two things.
Finally, building scale models teaches children that patience, perseverance, and ongoing commitment will reward them with a finished project they can be proud of. This is yet another lesson that is learnt at a young age but is one that will stand your youngsters in good stead for the years ahead, both during their schooling and their professional careers.
