All children love playing with LEGO and you can turn the game into fun and educational activities. You can do so much: learn colors, numbers, develop fine motor skills, practice logic and critical thinking, develop memory, work on concentration, create and copy patterns, spot similarities and differences and even improve communication skills when playing games in a group or learning a foreign language.
Following are the activities that come to my mind when creating the patterns for my child and I would appreciate your ideas in the comments to make the most of this great resource.
We use LEGO Duplo bricks and Lego Activities FREE Printable Templates. The downloadable document is in black-and-white outlines that gives you space to adjust to the colors you have at home or in your class.
So, here we go:
1. Learning to Match
After the child is 1 year old, it is the right time to introduce colors and matching concept. Print out the template with 2 bricks first and color them. Suggest the child 2 LEGO bricks of same colors, describe them, name the colors, show how to match by placing the bricks on the picture where they belong. As soon as the child understands the concept, you go further by adding a couple of different bricks and asking to make a choice and match.
Next step – 3 bricks templates and more colors to match.
One more involving game to play here is to “make a mistake”. Do the job for your child by placing the bricks on their places but one shall be a “mistake”. Ask if everything is right and give an idea to search for a mismatch. Discuss why is it so and make it right together. Children are excited to fix the problem while developing concentration and visual discrimination skills.
2. Copy the Pattern
When the child masters stacking, it is a good idea to introduce another activity – copy a pattern.
Print out and color (I would recommend to laminate for longer use) templates with stack of 3, 4 or 5 bricks on a card (increasing the difficulty level). Explain the child how to build the same pattern with LEGO. It may look like: start out by choosing the bottom brick, say its color aloud, place it and move up one by one naming colors in order to focus and keep things in mind. When the job is done, compare the results by placing the LEGO tower next to the sample card.
The game with a mistake works well here too – you suggest a tower with some mismatch and ask the child to identify it and fix.
3. Fine Motor Skills and Coloring
Make a pattern tower using the bricks and print out an empty template with the same quantity of bricks. Ask the child to color the template using same colors. Or print out 2 identical templates and color one of them. Suggest the child coloring another one by the given sample.
Younger children may need some assistance, so a set of crayons of preselected colors will help to complete the task.
To make the activity more challenging, let the child draw a random card from the pack. Seeing it for a couple of seconds the child is expected to color an empty template the same way based on what he or she remembers.
But the most complicated is when the child draws a card with the whole range of LEGO towers with no logic in colors, like on the picture. The time of memory retention is to be increased up to a minute or more, depending on a child’s age and skills. Having the picture in mind, the child proceeds with coloring.
4. Recover by the pattern
This activity is based on the logic and analogy method.
Suggest the child a tower with 5 bricks and an empty template with the whole range of towers increasing from 1 to 5 bricks. The child shall color all of the towers the way as if restoring the course of its construction – from the first to the last step.
If played in a group, put all LEGO bricks in a bag and ask children to get any random brick out. One by one. Make a tower of 5 (for example). Distribute printables of the above template to each child and ask them to color in by the sample. Compare and discuss the results.
5. Roll the Dice and Color
This game is perfect for early finishers or independent play. The best is to use two dices: a dice with numbers and the one with colors, like those that may be downloaded here for free (Colors and Numbers: Fun Dices and Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers).
The child is to roll the dices, count the steps and color the brick on the pattern using the color from the dice. And moves on till the end of the chart. As the end is reached, the child starts from the beginning but skipping the bricks with colors. When all coloring is done, the child shall copy the pattern using real LEGO bricks.
6. Math: Counting and Number Sense
Print out Lego Activities FREE Printable Templates, color and make cards. Place the cards in a row (start with 1 to 5 and move on to mixed numbers) and ask the child to match numbers to the cards.
Increasing the difficulty level, this activity works well in an opposite direction – suggest to the child a number sequence and ask to match the cards with corresponding quantity of LEGO bricks on them.
You may even use different “numbers” – in digits, dots, domino or all mixed up in one line!
7. Math: Number Mistake
Alike the above activity, place the cards and numbers “matching” them with a mistake (or mistakes). Ask the child to identify and fix the mismatch.
8. Math: Counting and Number Sense
This activity is based on cards with an array of LEGO towers. Being printed out and colored, it is suggested to the child to count and match numbers to each tower depending on the quantity of LEGO bricks on each of them.
To make it more difficult, suggest to the child a line with numbers and ask to find the card corresponding to this pattern sequence.
9. Math: More or Less Game
Ideal for 2 players but more people are also welcome. Print out Lego Activities FREE Printable Templates, color and laminate cards with 1 to 5 LEGO bricks in towers. Spread the cards equally and at random among the players. Each round the players place one card at the table (selecting or blindly). The one with more bricks on his or her card gets all cards of the round. The one wins who has all the cards.
10. Let’s Exchange. Negotiations and Speech Development Game
This game is good to play at school or at home, for foreign language class, as an ice breaker, morning activity, speaking club or just for fun.
Having the cards of the previous activity, towers of 5 LEGO bricks of different colors, distribute them among children so that each child has only one card.
Make a bag with LEGO bricks and let each child select any 5 bricks (make it one at a round or all 5 at a time). Normally a child will have his or her card and 5 bricks not completely matching to the card. Now the game begins. The child is negotiating to the one sitting clockwise asking if he or she has what is needed to complete the pattern and convincing to exchange. You may set a limit of how many sentences to use or create a list of words or set up any other condition suitable to your learning needs.
The goal is to make everyone complete their matching patterns by exchange and negotiations.
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What a great way to teach children,while playing, all about colors, coloring and counting!!👍👌