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  Plastic bricks can be used in a variety of ways as a teaching aid. Many times they come in handy as spur-of-the-moment math manipulatives. They are also useful for other subjects including history, social studies, science, art, even language and literature. This page lists over 60 examples of early childhood educational activities that utilize interlocking plastic bricks. Remember, kids learn best while having fun! Encourage your children to enjoy some free play with bricks between lessons, too. Color Sort Have your child sort a bunch of bricks by color. Can he or she name all of the colors? Point out the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue). Black and White Sort Separate all of the black and white bricks from the colored bricks. Have your child put all of the white bricks into one pile and the black bricks into another pile. Size Sort Ask children to sort bricks according to small, medium, and large. (Works great if you have an assortment of LEGO, DUPLO, and MEGA Baby blocks.) Spatial Relationships Demonstrate spatial relationships using a small and a large block (e.g., small block in front, small block on top, small block beside, etc.) Ask your child to describe the placement of the blocks as well. Classification Have children classify bricks by placing red ones in a box, blue on the box lid, yellow under the box and green beside the box. Above-Below, Over-Under Use plastic bricks to review the concepts of above and below, over and under. Top-Middle-Bottom Have your child make a stack of three bricks with a blue brick at the bottom, a green brick in the middle, and a red brick on top. Repeat with other combinations; i.e. yellow on the bottom, red in the middle, and blue on top; or white on the bottom, black in the middle, and another white on top. Top-Middle-Bottom Have your child make a tower of three bricks. Ask them which one is on top, which one is on the bottom, and which one is in the middle. Repeat by asking in a different order. Before-Between-After Place three different minifigures in a row, as if they are standing in line. (Do you have a lemonade stand, bank teller, or ticket window at which they can be waiting?) For this example we will use a fireman, a policeman, and a mailman. Ask your child which figure comes before the policeman, which figure comes after the policeman, and which figure is between the fireman and the mailman. Switch them around and repeat the questions. First-Second-Third Introduce the concept of first, second, and third. The first is the thing at the beginning. The second is the thing after the first. The third is the thing that comes after the second thing. Place three different minifigures in a row, as if they are standing in line. Ask your child which figure comes first, which figure comes second, and which figure comes third. Switch them around and repeat the questions. First and Last Add a few more minfigures to the above lineup. Now ask your child which minifig is first in line and which one is last in line? Left and Right Line up three bricks next to each other. For this example we will use a red brick, a yellow brick, and a blue brick. (The yellow brick is in the middle.) Ask your child which brick is on the left side of the yellow brick, and which brick is on the right side of the yellow brick. Switch them around and repeat the questions. Before-Between-After Make a line of DUPLO animals as if they are going onto Noah’s Ark. Ask your child: Which animal is before the hippo? After the hippo? Between the giraffe and the monkey? Etc. Squares and Rectangles Show your child the difference between a square plastic brick and a rectangular plastic brick. The square has four equal sides. The rectangle has two sides that are longer than the other two sides. You can stand it upright so that it is a tall rectangle or lay it down so that it is a short, wide rectangle. Fractions: Halves and Quarters Stack four bricks together. Make sure they are all the same color so it looks like one whole piece. Show your child how you can break the bricks in half, making two equal parts of the whole. Then show how you can break each of those halves in half again, explaining how four quarters make a whole. Put them all back together again to make one whole piece. Fractions: Thirds and Sixths Stack six bricks together. Make sure they are all the same color so it looks like one whole piece. Divide the stack into three equal parts. Talk about how one of those parts is one of three, so it is called one third. Divide each of the thirds in half. Now we have six smaller pieces. They all fit back together to make one whole piece. Number One Get 10 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of one. Number Two Get 10 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of two. Number Three Get 18 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of three. Number Four Get 20 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of four. Number Five Get 20 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of five. Number Six Get 24 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of six. Number Seven Get 28 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of seven. Number Eight Get 32 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of eight. Number Nine Get 18 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of nine. Number Ten Get 20 bricks (preferably of equal size, shape and color). Have your child sort them into piles of ten. Number Stacks Review numbers 1-10 and build brick stacks of corresponding numbers; one brick in a stack, two bricks in a stack, three bricks in a stack, four bricks in a stack, and so on. Line up the stacks to show how they get progressively taller. Adding On Make a grid of twenty squares (each square the size of a 2x4 brick). Ask the children to place graduating sets of square bricks on the grid. (One brick on line 1, two bricks on line 2, three bricks on line 3, etc.) Number Art Whatever number your child is learning at the moment, have him or her use that number of bricks to make either a flat design or a 3-D sculpture. (This works best with larger numbers.) Many and Few Make a pile of many bricks and a pile of few bricks. Ask your child to tell you which of the two piles contains many bricks and which pile has only a few bricks in it. More or Less Make two rows of bricks, one with more bricks in it and the other with less. Ask your child to tell you which of the two rows contains more bricks and which row has less bricks. Repeat with different numbers of bricks in the rows. More or Less Start by placing four bricks on the table. Have your child close his eyes. You take one brick away. Have your child open his eyes. Are there more or less bricks on the table? Repeat the question as you randomly take away and add bricks. Memory Game Start by placing four bricks on the table. (These should be various colors, shapes, and sizes.) Have your child close his eyes. Take one brick away and replace it with another one. Have your child open his eyes. What looks different? Keep increasing the number of bricks used to make it progressively more challenging. Which One Doesn’t Belong? Get three bricks that look exactly the same. Also get one brick that is a different color, shape, or size. Place these together on the table. Ask your child which brick doesn’t belong with the others. Different and Equal Explain that equal means to have the same amount as something else. Make two piles of bricks – one pile containing more bricks, the other pile with less. Ask your child if the piles are different or equal. Repeat the question, this time having made both piles equal. Keep repeating with different numbers of bricks, some piles being different and some being equal. (For large differences, your child may be able to tell just by looking; for closer quantities, he or she will have to count the bricks in each pile to see if it’s the same number or not.) Equal Explain that equal means to have the same amount as something else. Make two rows of bricks, with a different number of bricks in each row. Ask your child to either add bricks to one row or remove bricks from the other row so that both rows will be made equal. More-Less-Equal Have your child make two piles of bricks to show more and less; another two piles to show equal. Longer and Shorter Make two rows of bricks with varying lengths. Ask your child to tell you which row is shorter and which one is longer. Classifying Have your child sort bricks into the following categories: red, green, blue, yellow, white, black, square, rectangle, minifigures, headgear, etc. Listening Have your child build a stack of bricks following a sequence that you give them such as “Put a red brick on the bottom, a yellow brick in the middle, and a blue brick on top.” Add more bricks in the sequence to make it progressively more challenging. Match the Shape Help your child trace around several bricks of different shapes, then let your child fit the actual bricks into the corresponding outlines. Brick Art Have your child draw and color a close-up picture of a single brick, an arrangement of bricks, a minifigure, or some other piece. (Look at it like a modern still art painting.) Building Art Ask children to “build” a painting with red, yellow, blue, white and black bricks. (Works well with a study of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, and/or a study of cubism.) Pink and Blue Talk about how Pablo Picasso’s painting style changed during his life. When he was happy, he used a lot of pink (rose period). When he was sad, he used a lot of blue (blue period). Ask the children to build a creation using blue bricks only. If you have any pink bricks, ask the children to build a creation using pink bricks only. How do different colored bricks make you feel? Color Patterns Create several patterns with colored plastic bricks and ask the children to extend the patterns, copy the patterns, or create their own pattern. Black and White Patterns Create several patterns with black and white bricks only. Encourage the children to create similar patterns. Ordinal Numbers Place a bunch of minifigures in a row. Have your child describe the first, second, third, etc. Ordinal Numbers Line up four bricks in a row, three of which are alike and one which is a different color or shape. Ask your child which one is different – the first, second, third, or fourth? Scales and Weights Let your children weigh and balance plastic bricks using a kitchen scale, postal scale, or balance. Pulleys Provide two pails, blocks, a rope and pulley. Set up a pulley system and let the children practice using it to pick up and pull heavy loads (i.e., plastic bricks in a plastic bucket). Then challenge them to design a balance scale using both pails. Gravity Game Have the children build walls or towers of plastic bricks, then toss beanbags to knock them down. Who can build the strongest structure? Pretend Architects Have the children pretend to be architects or urban planners designing and building a house, town, or city. Giants Have the children build a small town and walk through it pretending to be giants. Big-Bigger-Biggest Have the children build big, bigger, and biggest structures. Tower Building Help your children to build towers as tall as they are. Then challenge the children to build a skyscraper taller than they are. See how tall they can build a tower before it falls. DUPLO blocks work best for this. Self-Portrait Have each of your children put together a minifigure that looks like them, or what they would want to look like if they were a minifigure. They may have to mix-and-match heads, torsos, legs, hair, and hats from different minifigures to do this. Then they can act out situations with their mini-siblings! Buildings Provide pictures of several different types of buildings. (i.e., Empire State Building, Cape Cod cottage, Victorian mansion, Medieval castle, adobe house, etc.) Encourage children to build similar structures out of plastic bricks. Transportation Encourage children to make a highway setup including a bridge, truck, train, car, bus, boat, ship, etc. Building Books Have children illustrate scenes from books using plastic bricks. (The Three Little Pigs; Jack and the Beanstalk; Charlotte’s Web; The Chronicles of Narnia; etc.) Holiday Colors As part of your holiday celebrations, encourage children to build creations using the colors associated with that holiday. For Christmas, ask the children to make something from red and green bricks. For Saint Patrick’s Day, ask the children to build an all-green creation. For patriotic holidays, ask them to make something that’s red, white, and blue. Brick Maze Construct a maze out of bricks for your minifigs to walk through. Board Game Try making a board game using bricks and/or minifigs as game pieces. OTHER USES
"My son loves Lego's and you can buy Lego kits to
build a big pirate ship or a space station. They're pretty expensive, so I
wasn't going to just go buy it for him as a toy. But I did buy it to use as an
incentive. The kit had over 300 pieces, so I just tied a condition to it that
he could put the first ten pieces together when he got home, but after that,
every time he took the initiative to do the right thing without having to be
reminded, then he could put the next ten pieces together. And, you know,
instead of walking over his sock, he would pick it up and put it in the hamper
and go put ten pieces together. And instead of just grabbing the last piece of
a cookie or a cake, he'd ask his sisters if they wanted it first. Of course, it
was just to get the Lego pieces, but at the end of the month he had built not
only a great pirate ship, but he'd built a really good character trait as well." ~Lisa Whelchel, homeschool mom and author of Creative Correction
Copyright © by The Olsen Family
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