Building Blocks (3-5)

Giving children the chance to use their imaginations is important and letting them play with wooden blocks and let them create anything they want. All children in the age range of 3-5 can also play with legos either Duplo blocks or normal ones depending on their age. This building for fun also introduces engineering design principles like concepts on sturdy and non-standard structures. We can reinforce this theory by having children make a plan, test it, and make improvements. The manipulation of these blocks is also good fine motor skill practice.

Here are some ways mathematical concepts can be introduced with legos. I would suggest avoiding overly structured lessons until they are at least 5 years old.

• Explain parts of a whole (fractions) using different sized legos (see figure one). Stack the legos and talk through the different pieces and compare and contrast the sizes.

• Show children that the number of pegs on top of smaller legos totals the number of pegs on larger legos. You can even write the equation parts on the legos (see figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2