If you look into any playroom or toy box, you’re likely to find colourful Lego blocks. Easy to play with, versatile and a challenge for kids - Lego blocks are a classic toy for good reason.
One of the great things about Lego is that it’s unique in the way it can grow with your children. There are many different sets for every age group, providing a wide variety of benefits as your kids grow from toddler to teenage years and even beyond. While there is a huge range of benefits, here are some of our favourite benefits of Lego across the age ranges.
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Helps toddlers develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination
When your little one hits toddler age, they’ve developed basic fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination like picking things up and dropping them. Lego can be a great addition to their toys and will help them refine these skills, while also developing new ones. Connecting all the pieces of a Lego set together requires precise and controlled movements, which increases their hand strength, teaches finger control and trains the hands and eyes to work together.
Lego Duplo blocks are ideal for this age group, as they are larger so they don’t pose a choking hazard and can accommodate smaller hands and fingers.
Develops social and emotional skills for preschoolers
When your kids are preschoolers, they are starting to socialise with other kids on a regular basis. Lego sets allow kids to work in groups to build a masterpiece, to ask for help when they want it, learn to share, take turns, be patient, and give and take constructive feedback. These skills not only help kids learn to socialise, but to also work as part of a team.
Lego sets can also evoke certain emotions in your kids and provide a safe environment for them to learn how to deal with them. For example, if they’re building something and it’s not going to plan, this evokes frustration, which could lead to them getting angry and giving up. However, if they stick to it and persevere, they’ll switch from frustration to happiness, and even pride at overcoming obstacles.
Frequently asked questions
Helps early school years get creative
Now that your kids are in school and they’ve developed solid fine motor, social and emotional skills, they can use Lego sets to spark their creativity and imagination.
Some sets provide instructions for kids to build something, while others come with a variety of bricks to allow them to build whatever they want. Following the instructions allows kids to see out a creative project from beginning to end, while free building lets them express themselves however their imagination sees fit.
While free building lets your child’s imagination go wild - they still need some kind of game plan on how all the pieces will go together. This helps them develop planning skills, while also thinking on the fly when things go wrong.
Allows tweens to explore their interests and hobbies
By the tween years, kids are starting to develop their own interests and engage in hobbies. Whether it be certain characters or movies, or even places - Lego can help with sets that revolve around these interests.
If your kids are arty or crafty, they’ll love getting a jewellery or picture-frame Lego set. If STEM subjects are more up their alley, they can learn new skills with a robot set and learn basic coding in the process. If your kids are movie buffs, there are plenty of movie-themed Lego sets out there to help them take the plot off-screen and make up their own endings.
Interest-specific Lego can be more detailed than the basic building ones, and can encourage your kids to not only maintain their interests, but may even encourage another one: collecting Lego sets.
It offers a fun and challenging hobby for teens
By the time your kids reach high school and their teen years, they’re most likely done with toys, or are moving away from them and specific hobbies and technology-based interests.
The beauty about Lego is that it can take them all the way to adulthood with more mature and sophisticated sets that provide them with complex challenges. There are some sets like Lego Creator that are designed for adults that give them the perfect opportunity to unwind, while also completing a complex challenge.
With these top five benefits, both you and your kids will love Lego. Challenge your little ones with different sets throughout their childhood, while also helping them build critical skills as they grow.
From enabling the development of crucial physical and emotional skills and encouraging your kid’s imagination, to possibly becoming a complex but fulfilling hobby for them throughout their life, it’s easy to see why Lego is such a classic and unique toy.
