As school holidays are upon us, many parents are looking for ways to not only keep boredom at bay but also ensure that their kids are learning and mindfully engaged in the process. And while screen time can be a great way for kids to keep busy and entertained, it’s also a good idea to find balance between digital and real-life play.
Here are five fun activities that kids, parents and siblings can try out together as a family using LEGO® bricks and sets at home.
Perfect for toddlers and pre-schoolers
LEGO® DUPLO® bricks are ideal for toddlers, and thankfully there are a number of games and activities they can safely enjoy using these sets.
Little ones will likely get a kick out of the ‘where’s the brick?’ game.
Grab three plastic cups and hide a LEGO DUPLO brick under one of them. Now, swop them around and see if your little one can find which cup the brick is hidden under. To make it more challenging add in a few more cups and LEGO DUPLO bricks of different colours. This is a great way to help train your child’s visual memory.
Help little ones to hone their observation skills with a game of ‘spot the difference’. Simply build two LEGO DUPLO towers, with a few small differences in one of them, and see if your toddler can spot what’s different. Now, take the first one away and see if your little one can remember all the differences. You can also create more differences and use more bricks once they’re comfortable with the game and understand how it works.
Fun for ages four and up
Kids aged four years and older will be able to tackle slightly more technical activities but, remember to keep it light and fun so they don’t lose interest.
Build a LEGO maze using LEGO bricks from your collection at home or using the LEGO® Classic Creative Brick Boxes on a LEGO Baseplate, and toss in a small round object to see if it will make it through the maze. Encourage healthy competition by getting each family member to build their own maze and see which rolling object makes it through the maze the fastest.
Another fun challenge for kids of this age is to build a boat made of LEGO bricks and load it up with coins to see which one floats the longest. This is a great way to challenge a child’s imagination and encourage them to get as creative as they would like with their boat structures, while developing fine motor skills too. It’s also a great way to incorporate water and teach kids the science behind buoyancy.
Older children (six years and up) would of course need a little more stimulation and more of a challenge to keep them interested. The Ziploc Challenge, where kids need to try to build a LEGO brick structure through a sealed plastic bag, is a great way to keep playtime stimulating and fun for the whole family. Decide on an object or character that each player needs to build, add a time limit to make it more exciting, and include friendly penalties for players who open their bags, for example.
Remember to keep the mood light and positive, and to make sure that the rules are flexible. It’s a good idea to give toddlers a little more time to complete their activities too, and to make time to engage in playtime with the kids, which has been proven to be tons more fun for little ones (and moms and dads, too!).
These are just a few of the many ideas out there designed to keep little ones busy at home, but you can find more super-fun activity ideas and challenges at www.lego.com, as well as by searching the #letsbuildtogether tag online.
