Keep calm and play LEGO!
Yes, you heard it right. With many of us having to stay indoors these days, LEGO has rolled out an all-new global campaign, #Letsbuildtogether, with the aim to help parents and children keep boredom at bay, stay meaningfully engaged, and enjoy some family bonding time.
With that, it's time to get creative and start building!
Here are some creative, interesting, and probably-never-known-before ways that you can play with your LEGO sets:
1. LEGO Maze
2. Memory games with LEGO
Photo Credit: LEGO
With a handful of LEGO® DUPLO® bricks and a few household objects, you and your toddler can learn through play with these simple memory games. These games can introduce basic math concepts to children, help them work on problem-solving, and develop important logical thinking they’ll need by the time they start school.
And the best part of little activities like these? While your child thinks they’re just playing a game, they’re really expanding their mind and learning at a rate you’d never believe!
- Color Matching
We loved this idea from The Imagination Tree! All you need for this super simple game is an egg box, some LEGO DUPLO bricks, colored pens or crayons, and some scrap paper. Draw a grid on scrap paper and ask your child to color each box in (different colors), put it in the egg box lid, then ask them to try and match the LEGO DUPLO bricks to the right color.
Want to make it a bit more challenging? Color a few boxes, show the card to your little one, then hide the card and let them try and recreate the sequence.
- Build a tower, remember the sequence
- Tell me a story
Tell your child a story for example, start with “The children finished school and went to the park with their parents”. Ask your child to tell the same story back to you, using LEGO DUPLO people or animals - use whatever you have. This game helps your child understand sequences of actions in a story, but also in a day.
They’re working on their short-term memory and as a bonus, learning about time too!
- Spot the difference
Make two similar LEGO DUPLO builds but change one or two things on the second one. Take the first one away and see if your little one can remember all the differences. Once your toddler is at ease with this game, change more things, and use a larger number of bricks.
- Where is the LEGO DUPLO brick?
- Find the missing item
This is a really simple game you can play anywhere with your child, as long as you have a couple of LEGO DUPLO pieces with you. Put four items in front of your child and tell them to memorize what they see. Ask them to close their eyes while you take an item away, and see if they can guess which one is missing once they open their eyes. To make it more challenging you can add more items, or re-order the pieces and guess where they were before.
You can even take it in turns and try this yourself… Ready to exercise YOUR memory too?
3. Build your own board game
Photo Credit: LEGO
You can try these games with LEGO bricks too! Check out the video here!
4. Make Your Own: Cars Parking Lot Spelling Game
Photo Credit: LEGO
Using LEGO Juniors cars, this activity, inspired by Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls, turns spelling into a fun parking lot game for children. For younger children, it can be a simple way to help them learn to recognize their own name. And for older children, you can make it more difficult by adding more difficult words, or getting rid of the letters on the parking lot and turning it into a fun spelling challenge.
What you need:
Steps:
1. Use a ruler or straight edge to draw a parking lot on a piece of paper.
2. Write out the letters of the word you have chosen in the parking bays.
3. Cut the sticky notes so they are small enough to stick to the roof of the cars, then write the letters of the word on them.
4. Stick them to the cars and then mix up the letter order.
5. Encourage your child to move the cars and spell the word in the right order.
6. Repeat and try different words. Have fun!
Safety note: Scissors can be dangerous for small children, so please make sure you supervise them closely during use.
5. Build a phone speaker
Photo Credit: LEGO
Make some noise with a #DIY phone speaker! And make sure to share your build with the community too! Check out the video here.
Have any ideas on how to use your LEGO? Let us know in the comments below!
