Lego. This is one of the most recognizable toy brands in the whole world. It may need no further introduction. You see colorful blocks strewn across the floor or play area, and you immediately think, ‘Oh, those are Legos.’ Since its creation by a Danish company many years back, the Lego brand has soared to great heights, making consistent global sales, from young toddlers to adults.
Play is a child’s work. So, when thinking of what toys to buy for toddlers, Legos should top the list. They can be quite pricey, but they’re certainly worth it. With Legos, they can learn more about Lego architecture, technic, creations, and other types of kits, on top of testing their imagination to build from scratch.
Lego blocks offer more than meets the eye to kids, going beyond giving them a toy to play with and keeping them busy. In fact, it’s believed that Lego sets are some of the most educational toys out there, making them one of the best toys to expose toddlers to. Keep on reading to learn more about the different advantages of Lego play.
1. Lego Play Fosters Creative Thinking
Legos often come in sets for the child to try and form with the instructions in the kit. Once they’re done forming the set, some kids like to keep their creations on display for a few days, while others like to keep dismantling it so they can collect more Legos to make for open-ended play. This means apart from following the kit, they also use their creative thinking to imagine whatever sorts of Lego creations they can come up with.
When building Legos, kids think about what they’re building, how they’re going to build it, and then how to play with it after. That’s a lot of creative thinking right there, with their mind doing all the work. This should be good news for parents of toddlers who love Legos, as true learning often happens when children have an opportunity to build what’s on their minds freely.
2. Playing With Legos Helps Develop Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are important to develop in toddlers. This is needed for kids to do specific functions with their hands, such as having a good pincer grasp, holding their pens and pencils in school, and picking up fine, small objects.
By playing with Legos, toddlers can practice their fine motor skills. They’re picking up small blocks and then trying to position those small blocks in the right places to build their creations. That takes good fine motor skills to be able to do that.
Legos help kids manipulate functions with their fingers. They develop dexterity, pressure awareness, and even muscle control.
3. Legos Enable Toddlers To Practice Teamwork And Communication
This third benefit comes into the picture when a toddler plays Legos with other children, perhaps their siblings, friends, or classmates at play school. Some like to be on their own and focus on what they’re building, but like most toys, Legos become much more enjoyable when building with others.
Children who play with Legos learn basic character development concepts, like sharing, teamwork, and good communication. Kids learn to share with others if they’re building separate creations from shared sets. If they’re helping each other build a Lego village, kids get to practice teamwork.
4. Lego Play Teacher Toddlers Spatial Awareness, Problem Solving, And Mathematics
Even the most basic Lego sets for toddlers have basic math in them. For instance, they’ll be asked to have two of this type of brick, as shown in the picture. The one forming the set will then have to count to have that exact brick with the right number, as instructed in the kit.
Apart from basic math, toddlers also learn to follow instructions to get things done right, patterns, and locations of the bricks, improving their spatial awareness and problem-solving when they make mistakes. These are all very important to learn as kids, so they can carry those traits with them as adults when they face real-world problems.
5. It Helps Build Hand-Eye Coordination
Playing with Lego bricks and other types of construction toys, for that matter, helps toddlers build their hand-eye coordination as well. Reading the kit and following instructions, then putting those into practice by actually building with their fingers, takes a lot of good hand-eye coordination, one of the most important physical skills for kids to learn.
On top of that, toddlers also learn and develop bilateral integration. This is the process wherein two sides of the body (the two hands, in this case) work together to achieve a goal.
Conclusion
With the benefits listed above, are you now more convinced about buying Legos for children? They can be your kids, nieces, a colleague’s child, or just about any other toddler you may be gifting to, you can’t go wrong with Legos.
Being intentional with what toys a toddler plays with has immense impacts on their development, and you’ll want that to be positive. Next time a child looks busy and caught up with Lego creations, leave them to enjoy what they’re doing. At least you know they’re not just having fun, but they’re learning, too.
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