10 Skills Children Learn While Playing With LEGOs

By: Ms. Dian-Kindergarten teacher

As parents, we are often asked to provide toys for our children to entertain them. Some toys are made fully for entertainment and some for education. LEGO is becoming one of many kinds of toys that offer education as its benefits. Children learn many important and incredible skills from LEGOs. Here are 10 skills children learn from playing LEGOs.

1. Fine Motor Skills
   Playing LEGOs is good stimulation and fun training to develop children’s fine motor skills. They use their fingers to pick up LEGO pieces and build something. This activity can actively build up stronger little muscles in their hands that can strengthen other skills such as learning to write.

2. Cooperative Play
   Children create a story when they create something from LEGO. They will probably make a zoo, a car, an airplane, a school, etc. When they make those things, they come up with the background of each creation that becomes a form of storytelling. When they make a zoo, for instance, they create a story about their family visiting a zoo and find a lot of animals there. Or when they make a car, they create a story about how they get that car, where they will take that car to, how the engine is, etc.

3. A Sense of Accomplishment
   When children have finished building something from LEGOs, they want to show others about their creations. They are proud of their creation and at that moment their self-confidence has increased. When they see people appreciate what they make, they also feel happier.

4. Persistence
   Building with LEGO bricks sometimes leads to heartbreak. A beautiful tower comes crumbling down with one wrong move. Initially, this is frustrating. But children who use LEGO bricks regularly are not defeated by this. They will rebuild when they fail. It helps them to learn about not giving up in any situation.

5. Solving a Puzzle
   It doesn’t matter whether a child uses an instruction booklet or builds completely from their own imagination, they are solving a puzzle! When children are picking up little pieces around them to form a building, plane, or creature, they are bringing order out of chaos. Playing LEGOs can strengthen their senses to solve problems in various ways.

6. Science
   Cause and effect are one of the first science lessons a child learns here. The foundation of science is to come up with an idea and to prove it practically. LEGOs do this naturally through imagination. A child simply comes up with an idea then develops it. Like when a child imagines building a tower, made of a single column, as tall as possible. It gets higher and higher, soon over his head, then the super tall tower falls over. They learn that the tower, made of a single column, falls over, because it is too tall and doesn’t have a stable base.

7. Technology
   Put simply, technology is using new techniques to accomplish a task. LEGOs teach children to use basic materials to complete a task. Children can make a lighthouse, a hot air balloon, a telephone, etc just from tiny pieces of LEGO bricks. They don’t have complex materials, just LEGOs and their imagination.

8. Engineering
   This is all over LEGOs! Want to build a bridge? Then you must figure out what it takes to stand up. Children quickly learn that a tower made of a single column quickly falls. By creating a stable base, they open up a new world of possibilities! Soon they will have pyramids or maybe even the Eiffel Tower!

9. Creativity
   Every LEGO creation is a form of art. A child’s imagination is the only limit! Children become creators with hundreds of tiny pieces. They can use wheels, shapes, and even “people” figures to build the ideas in their minds. It can be useful, entertaining, challenging, or even relaxing.

10. Math
    Volume, quantity, one-to-one correspondence, symmetry, patterns, and more, all can show up when a child plays with LEGOs. Let’s not forget addition and subtraction! When a child is given a limited number of Legos to complete their entire project, they learn that each one counts. They begin to understand that every brick, mini figure, and piece has value! Children can even begin the complex task of rationing their supply to complete their masterpiece.

So, what is your child’s best LEGO creation?

Source: KATIE T. CHRISTIANSEN’S ARTICLE