Nikitin (Kohs) Cubes and PlayCademy's Logic Puzzles & Games Class

Samuel Kohs (1890-1984) was an American psychologist who practiced in clinical and educational psychology. Boris Nikitin (1916-1999) was a Soviet and Russian teacher, one of the founders of the early childhood development methodology in the Soviet Union, and author of numerous intellectual games and books on early childhood development. What do these men have in common and how is it related to PlayCademy’s Logic Puzzles and Games class? The answer is in the picture below!

As someone who immigrated to Canada from Eastern Europe, I have always known the blocks pictured as "Nikitin Blocks". I have been using these blocks for many years now with both my children, but it wasn't until recently that I came across the same blocks mentioned online but under the name "Koh's Blocks". Upon further investigation, it turns out that Samuel Kohs developed the blocks as part of his doctoral dissertation at Stanford University in 1919. In 1920, Kohs further developed a Block Design Test, which was a performance IQ test that uses 16 colored blocks to replicate the patterns pictured on teh test cards. Interestingly, this test is still used as part of many IQ tests for assessment of intelligence, and in particular for assessing visuospatial ability. The test is commonly used for testing children with language and hearing disabilities and in multicultural research settings due to the test's non-verbal nature. It can also be used to assess damage to the right hemisphere of the brain.

Later in the 20th century, Russian teacher Boris Nikitin invented a game based on the same blocks called "Sloji Uzor" ("Make A Pattern"). I have no information on whether Nikitin came across Kohs blocks or independently came up with the idea, but the "Make A Pattern" game became a staple in many daycares, kindergartens, and and elementary schools in Eastern Europe. Further, multiple workbooks were developed to help teachers and educators find new ideas and work creatively with the blocks to fully unlock their potential and develop children's spatial logic, creativity, and imagination. As a result, the block became known as "Nikitin blocks".

I find it interesting that the blocks initially invented in America found their main use there in the fairly narrow field of intelligence testing, yet the same blocks became popular in the mainstream early childhood education on the other side of the world under a different name!

What do Nikitin (or Koh's!) blocks have to do with PlayCademy's Logic Puzzles & Games classes though? Well, I am definitely not attempting to perform the Block Design IQ Test here :)

The way that I use the blocks in Logic classes is the same as I have been using them with my own children, primarily for developing visuospatial capability and logic. I find these blocks to be absolutely great for this purpose, as well as for developing children's creativity and imagination. The workbooks and task cards offer a gradual progression of challenges, the easiest of which can be completed by a 3 year old, and the hardest of which can be challenging even for an adult.

In PlayCademy's Logic Puzzles & Games classes, we will be using small and GIANT sized blocks to complete various pattern challenges. I borrowed the idea of the giant blocks from a famous Russian Playful Math school called Mousematics (https://mousemath.ru).

Below are some pictures from the process of DIY making the giant blocks with my children, who were a great help with them!

Come play and learn with the Kohs/Nikitin blocks at PlayCademy's Logic Puzzles & Games classes!

If you are interested in using the blocks at home, you can buy them together with the workbooks (in Russian) here: https://smartstart.shop/search/?query=никитин