10 cures for boredom using Lego you have at home

By Belinda on June 4, 2016

Do you have truck loads of Lego at home and only a small portion of it is actually played with? This is certainly true in our household!

One day I made the conscious decision, to get creative and come up with some activities the boys could do, to use the Lego they had ‘forgotten’ about, instead of buying more and more Lego. I found with a little bit of help from me, these activities kept them amused for hours and they found Lego they never knew they had!

The following Lego based activities are fantastic for when you are stuck for things to do on a rainy day, at the weekend when you just want to chill out at home or over the school holidays. Enjoy!

Use Lego to learn about sequencing and patterns. Make a sequence with Lego such as blue, red, grey, blue, red, grey and then ask your child to continue it or to fill in missing pieces to complete the sequence. You can make it simple for younger children by just alternating 2 colours and then use more complex patterns for older children.

Teach a younger child colours by asking them to sort a pre-prepared pile of random coloured Lego into groups of the same colour and to name each colour.

Challenge your child to make a Lego boat or water based vehicle such as a submarine and float it in the bath or a tub of water. We only recently discovered a Lego submarine we had made from a box months ago, had moving parts when placed in water!

Sort Lego into different categories with your child – vehicle related, mini figures, boards etc. This has the bonus of making it easier for your child to find pieces when they are making a new creation. I guarantee they will even find pieces they never knew they had and come up with some new and exciting creations.

Provide your child with a container of random Lego pieces and ask them to make something creative out of just these pieces. Have a set time limit such as 15 minutes if you choose. My 6 year old son came up with the awesome creation below, made just out of random handfuls of Lego I gave him.

Have a Lego treasure hunt where your child has to find hidden pieces of Lego around the house and have a small prize to give them if they find them all.
When you buy a new box of Lego, encourage your child to make it alone and time how long it takes them to complete it. Then at some point in the future, suggest breaking it up and time your child again to see how much quicker they can make it the subsequent time(s).

Challenge your children to make a Lego vehicle(s) of their choice and race the vehicles against each other. Modify the vehicles to see if you can make them go faster and faster! Make a Lego pit stop for your racing vehicles and some certificates to present to the winner and runner up!
Play a memory game whereby you put a selection of Lego pieces such as a mini figure, wheel, spiderweb, flame and a horse on a tray. Show them to your child for 30 seconds and then cover them with a teatowel. See if they can remember them all without looking. You can increase the number of objects and reduce the timeframe they can look at them, to make it more difficult. My boys could easily recall 7/10 Lego objects from those on the tray below and with a little bit of help they remembered the remaining 3 objects. We all had our turn at choosing the objects and then guessing the objects.
Make 3 objects with Lego that are shaped very differently and are easy for your child to explain what they are. Show them to your child and let them feel them. Blindfold your child and see if they can determine which object is which by touch only.