Building and Learning with LEGO blocks:
The reason I designed this learning alphabet and spellings activity using LEGO blocks is because I love LEGOs and I believe that learning can be made a lot of fun if one thinks creatively about it. I have been obsessed with LEGO for a long time. A very long time indeed. I have been obsessed with them since childhood, and that obsession has never ended. Or maybe, the child inside me never grew up! Whatever the case, I love LEGO. Seeing LEGO blocks brings back old childhood memories of building blocks with my siblings, and have an amazing time altogether.
I want my daughter to have that same amazing time, playing, building, having fun. And I also want something more. I want her to learn, and I want her to develop a love for learning, so that she feels excited at the idea of learning.
Building LEGO is a such a fun hands on activity in itself, that we like to play every single day, and sometimes even twice a day. Mix and match it with a learning project, and we have got ourselves an amazing package.
Learning alphabet, or learning spellings, or learning anything for that matter doesn’t have to be tiresome and annoying, it needs to be fun. So let us make teaching and learning a fun thing with the help of LEGO blocks in this totally awesome learning activity.
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Why is Learning with LEGO so important?
Building blocks and learning is an important skill. It improves hand eye coordination, it is an awesome motor activity to improve fine motor skills and develops math and engineering skills too as Nadia mentions in her post 5 Benefits of Building Blocks.
What is this Learning with LEGO activity about?
This hands on learning alphabet and spellings activity using LEGO is a matching game of sorts, that will help kids match the Uppercase and Lowercase letters, recognize each and every alphabet, and even explore some 3 to 4 letter words. You can also use this activity to teach sight words. These are 100 common words that can be found on almost every page (e.g. he, she, the, then etc)
This activity has been designed to strengthen the kids alphabet learning. More often than not, kids pick up Uppercase letters from books or nursery rhymes during Screen time, but they are usually slow in picking up the Lowercase letters. If they do already know both uppercase and lowercase letters, they can still use this activity to perfect or practice their alphabet.
This activity would serve as an excellent word work station or a literacy center.
What you need:
52 Large sized LEGO blocks ( I have used large sized LEGO blocks to make it easier for my 2 year old. If you are doing this with older kids, feel free to use small blocks)
- Black marker.
How to Learn & play with LEGO:
Make a complete set of ABCs both capital and small, on different blocks. The basic idea is for the kids to join the Uppercase letters with their Lowercase counterparts.
- Start with 3 letters. Meaning 6 blocks A, a, B, b, C, c. Once they perfect those letters, keep adding 3 more sets. We do this because we don’t want to overwhelm them by using all 26 LEGO sets (52 blocks) at once. If they get overwhelmed, they won’t have fun, and if they won’t have fun, they won’t learn as quickly. Span this learning process out to at least a week, so by the end of the week, they would have perfected their Uppercase and Lowercase letters and you can move ahead to higher level tasks like teaching small 3 to 4 letter words.
- Use this learning alphabet and spellings activity to talk about what sounds each alphabet makes and maybe teach familiar words that begin with that letter. For example: A for Apple, B for ball, so on and so forth.
Lets sing ABCs and build:
After a while, just let them play with the blocks. Like for 20 minutes to half an hour, I would teach my daughter to match the alphabets, and clap at every correct one, but after a while she just played. Let the kids make something of their own. When I let her do this, she made an alphabet tower, and told me all the letters, both Uppercase and Lowercase, that were in that tower. So this play basically strengthens what they have just learned. She also made me sing the alphabet song, and then sang it herself for like 20 times before I finally decided that I did not have the strength to listen to it anymore and I took her to the park.
Make "Learning Alphabet and spellings activity" even more interesting:
Once they have learned their ABCs, move ahead and make them learn small words. You might have to make some extra letters for this. Like the word Ball which has 2 ls. This is a great way to start the word building process. To give them the idea about how letters join and change their sounds.
- You can also use this block building activity to talk about sight words. Like when a consonant comes together with a vowel to form a simple 2 letter word. For Example: ‘b’ comes together with ‘e’ to form ‘be’. Similarly, the common sight words he, at, it etc. For older kids, I found a pretty great activity for learning Sight words using LEGO blocks.
- You can also use this LEGO alphabet activity to teach them to spell their names.
Buy "Ready made" Learning options online:
Have Fun!
I hope you guys had as much fun as I did with my daughter. For some learning time during a long drive, make a busy bag and take these blocks along with you. It is really fun, and will keep them busy for quite a while. If you want something else for your busy bags, try making these very simple Reusable velcro stickers.
If you want to make soft felt books for babies and toddlers, please refer to How to make felt alphabets guide. It also includes free Uppercase and Lowercase alphabet templates that you can print and use.
Happy Teaching!
And please don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments section below!
P.S. Sorry, I almost forgot. The marker will wash off from the blocks easily with a thinner (nail polish remover), so DON’T WORRY!!
Other Kids Activities:
Hey Alif
Your blog is so inspiring, will definitely going to use this idea for sentence making for my daughter
Thanx and keep going
Loved the idea❤
Love your ideas #alifyasinspirations ?
Such a nice activity. I must say this type of activities might help my son to learn and build his mind efficient. Thanks alot for sharing.
Very good idea with details. Amazing work.
Good idea with details you have provided is amazing.
Wow! Thats really a good idea. I never thought of using legos as teaching aid.
Thankyou so much. I hope this post helped you.
Thankyou so much Kim.
Thankyou Arwa. If you do this activity with your son, I would love to see a picture.
Thankyou Alifia. I love to see my ideas implemented.
Again an innovative academic.. I’ll definitely try it once my bub turns two.. hehe
Wow that’s really amazing and unique activity nice good job dear
Thankyou Maria. I would love to see him learn.
Thankyou Fatema.
Loved the idea! Will try it with my Insiya ??
Thankyou :))
Such a great idea, and a huge money saver! Can’t wait to try this out.
Wow! Great post! Very inspirational and insightful! I see the importance of learning with lego. I don’t have kids yet but I’ve got nieces and nephews and as a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking of getting toys for two of them. After reading this, I believe lego is what I should absolutely get!
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