Legos are plastic building blocks that come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. These plastic blocks all have circular holes that protrude from the surface of the block, which allows for the pieces to interlock. The interlocking by these plastics pieces allows for the builder to create a multitude of intricate designs. These designs, include, but not limited to, famous buildings such as Big Ben or Taj Mahal, famous cities such as London or New York City, or famous pieces of machinery such as the Millennium Falcon or the Death Star from Star Wars. The possibilities for creation are endless with Legos. Legos are a staple toy for many children’s childhood and serves a great purpose than just being a children’s toy. Legos are an excellent toy because they strengthen a child’s development , serves as a foundation for future careers, and appeals to all ages.
Before delving into the evaluation of the toy, one should learn about the history of Lego. The Lego company was founded by a man named Ole Kirk Kristiansen. He founded the company in 1932 and based it in Billund, Denmark. He combined the first two letters of the Danish Words “LEG GODT”, meaning “play well”, to create the name for the company. He created the toy because he believed that it had the powerful ability to develop a child’s cognitive, emotional, and social skills(Mortensen). His belief that the toy can help in children’s development has been proven by a multitude of studies done with the toy. Today, the Lego company has overtaken major toy companies, such as Hasbro and Mattel, to become the number one toy company.
Legos have an amazing ability in strengthening a child’s development. First, they are able to strengthen a child’s cognitive skills. The cognitive skills that are getting improved by playing with legos are fine motor skills and math skills (Sri). Legos come in a vast range of shapes and sizes, which can lead to twisting and turning a child’s hands, fingers, and arms. This promotes coordination and dexterity which are needed for children for crafts, handwriting, and dressing themselves. Legos also help in a child’s math skills because children need to learn how to add, subtract, multiply, or divide how many pieces they need for their creation. A study has been done to see if Legos actually increase cognitive development. There were two groups of kids and one group was able to play with legos for a month and the other group was not able to play with Legos. After the month, the kids were put through a series of tests to see how well their fine motor skills developed. Through the study, it was seen that the kids, who played with Legos for a month, had a significant increase on their cognitive development. Second, Legos are able to strengthen a child’s emotional skills. Legos are able to help aid in a child’s emotional development by giving them a sense of accomplishment and to teach them persistence. With the sense of accomplishment, children are able to feel a sense of pride after they create something, which can lead to an increase in self-confidence. Legos are able to teach children persistence because Legos are small, which can lead to mistakes. This allows the children learn to cope with the frustration of mistakes and to keep on building until they get it right. Lastly, Legos can help in social skills by cooperating with peers. Children can cooperate with peers to build something together.
Legos have also been able to serve as a foundation for future careers. They can serve as a foundation because children that have played with Legos are already exposed to skills needed in future careers. By developing a child’s math skills and ability to follow intricate directions, this has allowed for future engineers and architects to flourish in their fields. An example would be how a woman’s daughter has been able to use her past experiences with Legos to be able to use them in her job being an architect. She was able to recall past designs she made with Legos and implemented them in the buildings she designs now(Cooke). Legos have also aided people in art careers. Legos help children explore their creativity by being built into whatever they can imagine. There are now artists that focus on mainly using Legos to create pieces of art.
Originally published 15.10.2019