Building Blocks and Lego for 2 Year Olds

I have a 2 year old son and a 6 year old son and both have them loved lego duplo and other building blocks as toddlers.

This article looks at the building toys they have enjoyed playing with as well as lots of different activities you can do with your blocks. Activities include the simple things from building towers and learning colors to more fun games such as toddler bowling.

Photo is of some of our megabloks and lego duplo.

I bought a big set of megabloks when my eldest son was about 18 months and they have been played with so much - they were an excellent investment. My eldest son still plays with them when I get them out for my 2 year old son even now. Mega bloks are excellent building blocks for 2 year olds. The blocks are big so easy for little hands to manipulate and put together. They are really bright colors so are great for teaching colors too. They are also extremely versatile and we use them in so many times of play.

Our favorite megabloks activities include:

Toddler bowling - build some towers with your megabloks and try and knock them down with a soft ball (illustrated by the photo opposite).

Build a space rocket

Building all kinds of other structures - the megabloks website has lots of ideas of what to build with downloadable instructions too.

Color sorting - sorting the megabloks into piles of different color or building just out of one color.

Lego duplo are also perfect for 2 year olds. Again the bricks are bigger so perfect for little hands to build with and you don't have to worry about a choking hazard. Both my sons (age 2 and 6) play with them. Even though my eldest son has smaller legos, he still plays with the bigger blocks when we get them out which has made them a great investment for me.

We have a standard tub of lego duplos but we also have a couple of other lego duplo kits too which include a train and a creative cars set.

Read on for my reviews of the sets.

There are tons of lego duplo play ideas suitable for a 2 year old. Here are some to get you started.

Color matching - Start building a tower with a single color. For example, start building a red tower. Get your toddler to find all the red blocks and continue building a tower. Then build a yellow, blue, green and other color towers.

Make a color rainbow - make a color rainbow like the one opposite. Encourage your toddler to find the right colored blocks for each row of the rainbow.

Build numbers or letters - use the lego blocks to build different numbers and letters.

Car Maze - if you have a 2 year old who likes playing with cars, build a car maze with your lego blocks. Encourage your toddler to find the way out of the maze with the car.