LEGO® and DUPLO® are one of our all time favourite toys to play with. Both are fantastic for improving coordination, logic, creativity and imagination, the possibilities really are endless.
I love nothing more than a great set (LEGO® flowers are currently my favourite ), but the kids like to play a bit more freely and create towers, bridges and even cities with our collection.
I’ve pulled together our 10 favourite ways to play with DUPLO®, I hope you enjoy them as much as we have.
Easy DUPLO® Play Ideas
1. Painting and printing
Try some printing and painting with DUPLO. this is a lovely creative activity that’s not too messy and great for one child alone or kids in a group.
Smaller bricks can also be used for this, but DUPLO® is easier for little hands to hold.
2. Messy Play
We LOVE sensory play, so adding DUPLO® to our slimy spaghetti play was a no brainer. I cooked the spaghetti is warer and food colouring, then drained it and added a little oil to keep it moist.
3. Create a game
We made a DUPLO® Guess Who game using DUPLO figures instead of pictures which worked really well, although it does mean you need more then one of each figure.
4. Simple Sums
Do some simple sums with DUPLO® bocks and people.
5. Sand and Water Play
DUPLO® blocks, figures and accessories are perfect for using with sand and water as they can be easily cleaned when you’re finished.
6. Build a track
We love using DUPLO® to make large tracks for moving toys. Hexbugs are perfect for this activity as they race around corners and chamge direction.
7. Build a pattern
Use blocks to make patterns! We tried to incorporate a lot of different patterns into this building.
8. How many building blocks tall?
Measure how many blocks tall you are! This is a brilliant, simple activity and works well if you’ve got more than one child as they can help each other and compare how tall they are, how how big thier feet are etc.
9. How strong is a tower
Build towers and set up a mini science investigation to find out how strong they are.
10. Build a famous landmark
Build a famous landmark. This is meant to be Big Ben!
I like how you mixed up different things like the spagehetti and the legos, for some fun play.
Thanks x
This is the perfect post for me I’m getting ready to host a #legoduploparty .
oooh great. do let me know when it is. x
How cool!!
Love the idea of building race tracks.
Thanks Liz! It was great fun!
Love the printing idea, so clever. Our lego gets mixed up with the play mobil. Many a mansion gets built for them out of it! 🙂
ooooh I’d like to see that!
Brilliant Emma! Isn’t Duplo great? And you have so many different ideas. Simply brilliant!
Ooh what great learning opportunities!
Thank you for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
Its really interesting to see what you can do with duplo because I have to admit we skipped it and went straight to lego with Goblin (33 months) because we felt it was more versatile. He loves playing with it, but maybe I could incorporate some Duplo as well as they are interchangable.
Great Duplo ideas. As we have two big Duplo fans in our house, we will use many of your ideas to get the usual block building more fun and new for the kids.
Thanks
I love the idea for making a track. We need to get some duplo blocks.
I love this post! Never would have thought to combine DUPLO with spaghetti!
Duplo is great for learning. I remember making race tracks with lego when I was small must be the way children think! Fun way to do sums too!
Great ideas!
I love those ideas- especially the strength tower. Very clever. I’ve also seen putting cvc words on the blocks (each letter on one block, and then sticking the blocks together).
So many fun things to do with Lego. I have pinned the maths one, I’ve been looking for fun ways to do more counting.
Thanks for linking to the Sunday showcase.
What great ideas!! Thanks for sharing them at Sharing Saturday!!
so much fun! I included this in my features for this week’s Sunday Showcase. Thanks for sharing all these fun ideas with us.
Cute! Don’t forget patterning activities (ABABAB, ABCABCABC, and so on) and skip counting counting with multiple stacks of duplos.
Love Duplo for Learning. I’ve made some Duplo Number Cards that people can print and use. Let me know if you’d like the link 🙂
Thank you, they look great!