Icey Ice Building Set

Product Description

Cognitive 4

Skills

• Icey Ice develops spatial awareness skills by players manipulating blocks and connecting pieces in 3 dimensions and multiple angles.
• Icey Ice fosters creativity through the player designing and assembling of the blocks.
• Icey Ice develops visual perception and processing skills by players translating the provided illustrations into built objects, utilizing the blocks and connecting pieces. 

Play Ideas

• Instruct two teams to use identical number of and sized pieces to race to make the tallest tower.
• Instruct one or more participants build a structure together. Roll a dice to see how many pieces a player will add each time; each dot on the die represents one large piece or two small pieces. For example, if participant rolls a “3” he / she can build with three small, or one large and one small building block.
• Maintain a record book of the tallest and widest creations made by each participant. Participants will use a ruler to measure height and width of each creation. 

Adaptation Ideas

• Facilitator can build a physical model of illustration before player attempts to build on his /her own in order to give an opportunity for player to physically manipulate finished product while building his / her copy.
• Introduce building pieces to players by using them independently of one another, such as stacking “ice” blocks, or placing the smaller “ice” blocks in the opening of the larger “ice” block.  

Communicative 4

Skills

• Icey Ice fosters expressive language skills by encouraging players to describe their creations to other players or facilitators.
• Icey Ice fosters discussion and the exchange of ideas between players as they work together to build one item or complementary items / structures.
• Icey Ice promotes language development for younger players as they assign labels to their creations. 

Play Ideas

• A facilitator will build a sculpture with the Icey Ice blocks and hide from players' view. Using verbal directions only, the facilitator will direct player to recreate the sculpture utilizing the remaining blocks. When the player completes his / her sculpture, the facilitator reveals the hidden sculpture to compare with player's. 
• Instruct players to draw, take pictures, or make of movie of their finished creations to create a master portfolio, scrapbook, or film. Player can then present master work to family or friends. 
• Instruct players to create sculptures that relate to one another. The player will then use the related sculptures to present in a story or play format. 

Adaptation Ideas

• To foster interest or understanding of ice crystals / snowflakes, read a children’s book with related content in advance of playing building with building set pieces. 

Social/Emotional 4

Skills

• Icey Ice does not have game rules, so players are permitted to create and build freely without fear of the repercussions of making a mistake.
• Icey Ice promotes sharing, negotiating and turn taking among multiple players due to the limited number of colored and connective pieces from which players can select to build their own creations.
• Icey Ice develops a player’s confidence by allowing a player to create a finished product of his / her creation.
• Icey Ice creations encourages pretend play between players as their finished built creations can interact in a game of players choosing. 

Play Ideas

• Instruct players to take turns adding pieces to a sculpture. Foster teamwork by adding one large or two small on each turn and create something together!
• Create a large scale game board of Bingo or Tic-Tac-Toe and have players utilize the different colored and size blocks as playing pieces. 
• Assign colored Icey Ice blocks to teams of two players. Utilizing two large buckets / trash cans or equivalent containers, invite teams to toss their assigned colored blocks into the containers in a limited amount of time. The team to "sink" the most Icey Ice blocks into their bucket is the winning team!