Using Lego Duplo for Your Homeschool Lessons and Activities

For me, one of the best toys you can invest in is Lego. It's classic, durable, timeless and fosters creativity in children. Not to mention the fact that it's a great toy for fine motor practice. For younger children, it's a great way to prepare their tiny hands for writing. 

Lego is popular with a lot of parents and kids as well as therapists. Blocks are used in a variety of activities for learning and testing. Did you know that an 18-month old child should already be able to build a tower of 2-3 blocks? My son was already building tall towers even before that age all because I exposed him to different kinds of blocks (wooden, plastic, Megablocks and Duplo) when he was very young. 

My son started with Duplo and Megablocks when he was just several months old and our collection has just grown since. He graduated early to Lego because he knows that these are toys and not food, not to be put inside his mouth. (Lego is a choking hazard so please supervise your kids at all times). My son is 3 years old now and he uses the Lego sets for older kids. 

We use Lego in our homeschool activities a lot and I found some Duplo sets that are great for lessons. Check them out!

This Duplo set is a great investment because you can use it for younger kids as well as older kids. For younger kids you can teach them the following with this set:

• Animal identification
• Animal classification
• Colors
• Color sorting
• Transportation

For older kids:

• You can use this set for Unit Studies Around the World or just a particular country like China or Africa. 
• You can encourage kids to write stories/ideas/reaction to the different settings or countries that they studied
• You can teach them about caring for the environment and what they can do to help
• You can teach them about endangered species such as the panda or tiger in the set (Note - Please take caution when teaching this topic to gifted or twice exceptional kids as they can be very passionate and emotional about it)

I really love this set. I wish I had seen this when my son was younger. It has just so many things that my son likes - the big truck, market setting, food blocks and the tiny people to fit in his truck. 

With this set you can teach:

• colors
• color sorting
• food
• food classification
• simple math
• and even a role playing game on how to buy food from the market and how to act/behave while there

I think this is the most basic set that you can get. It's still appealing to children because of that car and the bright colors of the blocks. Use this set to teach:

• Colors
• Fruits
• Counting

This set is such a great Science Unit Study set about plants and gardening. With this set you can teach:

• Basic gardening information (build the set and then plant your own garden!)
• Plants
• Parts of a plant
• Plant life cycle
• How to care for plants
• Where our food comes from
• Vegetables
• And even Math principles such as counting and measuring(since the plants have extra blocks to show how they grow, the child can measure them using a ruler or another manipulative such as erasers or Shopkins! That's even better because you can incorporate two toys into one activity!

Lego is really a super toy and I firmly believe that every developing child should have a set or two or like us, even more! =D

If you want to save these ideas for later, feel free to Pin the image below.

I have not been compensated for this post. We just really like Lego. I'd also like to thank Lego Toys R Us Glorietta for allowing me to take photos. If you want to check out the Lego section of Toys R Us Glorietta, just look for Avel and he will hook you up with the latest deals (Tip: It's Bricktober time and they are giving away a set of 4 Lego figures free with every purchase of P2999.75) and releases from the brand as well as advice you on the best sets to use for your homeschool!