Lego Building Games: Master Your Kid’s Skill through City Planning
Lego has been the fan-favorite icon of block construction and architecture for kids over roughly nine decades. With a spin on the classic wooden blocks, Lego produced colorful pieces more suitable for all ages to enjoy.
And since then, Lego has come out with all sorts of designs for sale – ranging from spaceships and machinery to the Titanic and sets based on popular movies like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. However, the most popular Lego sets continue to be architecture-based, such as bridges, buildings, statues, and even whole cities!
A statistic states that more than 600 billion Lego pieces have been manufactured since they first appeared on the market. That’s enough for each person in the world to have 84 pieces!
All over the world, children enjoy spending countless hours with Lego building anything their wildest imaginations can create. While Lego are fun to play with, they are a great educational tool geared towards architecture for kids.
This article will highlight the benefits of Lego architecture for kids and some activities you and your child can try together!
The Benefits of Learning With Lego
A study published by PubMed.gov revealed that playing with puzzles and building blocks helps kids develop spatial skills that are essential for STEM-related subjects. Visualization and thinking in steps are huge components of math and science.
Have you ever played with your child only for a complete meltdown to ensue because of a communication mishap? The more children play with others, the more efficient they become at communicating. By building Lego together, your child will learn how to negotiate, share and contribute, all elements of good language development!
Children learn that it takes a lot more to get to a finished product than just having a great idea. Construction play also helps them understand that there is more than one way to solve a problem and come to a solution. Different approaches could end with a different result, sometimes one that was better than expected.
Lego were developed with creativity and imagination in mind. If your child has a vision, idea, or goal, they are actively using creative problem-solving to get the result. It’s an open book to let their imagination take hold.
Architecture, building, and creating takes a lot of careful planning, organization, and patience. While playing with Lego is a fun task, it’s still a way for your child to learn to plan their next move and how that resulted in success or a fiasco.
How Exactly Do Lego Help Kids With Architecture?
Lego are the building blocks of architecture, and we completely agree! In fact, there are three lessons of architecture that your child can learn simply by playing with Lego.
Stability: What types of structures last vs. those that don’t? What are the differences between a stable and sound structure and one that falls apart more easily? Lego allow your child to experiment with basic architectural engineering on a smaller scale.
Utility: What is the purpose or use of a structure? There is a difference between functional structures and those that have flawed designs. Lego building architecture is all about designing with intent, taking into consideration size, scale, and utility.
Aesthetic qualities: We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that each and every one of us has different interpretations of beauty. And because Lego come in so many different shapes and sizes, piecing them together in a beautiful way is part of architectural design. Building a sound structure that’s also appealing takes a lot more practice than you think!
Lego Building Architecture Activities to Try
There are a lot of fun and engaging games for kids to help develop their engineering skills. Plus, joining in is a great way to spend quality time together! Here are a few you can try:
- Inspired By Real Life Replication Game: Have your child find a distinguishable building from anywhere in the world and read about the history and background of that structure. It could be the Eifel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, or even the pyramids of Egypt! Then, have your child build their own building inspired by the famous one.
- Make Your Own Board Game: Encourage your child to design a new board game and come up with the rules themselves. Not only will they be able to create the board game, but they’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor well after it’s complete!
- Sign Your Child up for a Course: If you see that your child is passionate about building Lego structures and feel they’re ready to take their skills to the next level, then a fun, interactive course is a great way to do so. They’ll get to combine their love of Lego with a deeper understanding of what it takes to plan, sustain, and build an urban city!
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