Why playing with LEGO® DUPLO® bricks is a great activity for toddlers

What are activities for toddlers? Well, an activity can be anything; It’s something you do, something you spend time on, and it’s often something you like doing. Now, activities for toddlers often include some kind of playing. Whether they’re playing house, playing on the playground or playing with LEGO® bricks. Surely, you didn’t think we’d make this article and not mention LEGO bricks, right?

In this modern world, there are plenty of activities for toddlers to enjoy, and it’s sometimes hard to pick just one. But why choose? We believe in a playtime without limits – a playtime that can be anything, anywhere and whenever it’s desired. And that’s when LEGO DUPLO® enters the chat.

At LEGO DUPLO, we’re in the business of helping keep toddlers happy, occupied and developing. When your kids are playing with LEGO DUPLO bricks, they’re not just playing around, they’re developing important skills that they’ll use for the rest of their lives.

Activities that boost skills

Research has shown that 90% of a child’s brain develops before the age of five, so when we design any DUPLO set, our starting point is to think about how it can inspire a fun activity that will boost up to five skillsets.

1. Social Skills
2. Cognitive Skills
3. Creative Skills
4. Physical Skills
5. Emotional Skills

In our LEGO Play Well Study, over 90% of parents say that play helps their children develop vital life skills. Let’s take a closer look at some of those skills.

The social skills are developed through role-playing. Maybe the plot of today’s playtime is how a LEGO figure is taking the bus to adventure and is having a chat with the bus driver. But it’s more than that. When toddlers play with each other or their parents they are learning to collaborate on a story and communicate what they think should happen next.

LEGO DUPLO bricks have fun shapes and sizes in all the colors of the rainbow and sometimes they even have eyes. While this makes the bricks more fun, it also helps develop your toddlers’ cognitive skills alongside learning to count and getting familiar with the alphabet.

Playing is a great activity when it comes to giving your brain a good workout. When people play, they use their imagination. This is not even something we think about, it just happens. Our mind makes up scenarios, comes up with dialogue… what if this happened? And then this? And then they could do this! These are our creative skills at work, and it helps us improvise and adapt.

Playing with LEGO bricks is in many ways a sensory activity for toddlers because they have to put the bricks together, balance them and think about the design of their brick world. Playtime is seldom a stationary activity, and moving around while building develops their physical skills. Sometimes, getting those bricks to stay together is a tough challenge for small hands, and it can also be frustrating having to share your story with someone who doesn’t quite get the plot. When toddlers participate in activities such as playing with LEGO bricks, their emotional skills are developed, and they learn resilience and self-expression.

So, when you see your toddlers make up fantastic stories that start at a farm along with the animals and they suddenly end up in space with alien creatures, they’re not just playing, they’re telling a story and learning important skills all the way to the Moon. Playing is storytelling, and storytelling is one of the greatest activities for toddlers when they are developing all of the skills above.

Expanding the possibilities with play

As we said, we believe in a playtime without limits. Let your small ones go on an adventure, and take playtime outside where there are plenty of opportunities for some amazing outdoor activities for toddlers, including playing with LEGO DUPLO toys! Being outside creates a whole new world of play opportunities; the sandbox suddenly makes a vast desert, the green grass makes the plains in Africa look small, and the trees are giant cities full of foreign life.

Make bath time an adventure and drop some LEGO DUPLO bricks into the deep, because even a few inches of water make a great blue ocean for your toddler. We’ve made sure our LEGO bricks can withstand any adventure, whether it’s on land, in the air or at sea.

Just like the surroundings, play knows no age. Playing with LEGO DUPLO bricks is a sensory activity that little builders as young as one-year-old can enjoy when they immerse themselves in the brick-built world with LEGO DUPLO toys.

That’s all, folks! Now, all that’s left is to see what imaginative stories your toddlers will come up with.