Adventures and Play

Kid play and learning adventures

Feed the Duplo Alien

by 26 Comments

It is Tools For Learning time and this weeks manipulative is LEGO® or DUPLO®. Despite Daddy buying Lego for Adam since before he was born, we are currently focusing on Duplo play. The pieces are big enough for Adam to easily handle and they come with the added benefit that you can stick labels onto them. I wanted an activity where Adam could sort colours, shapes and numbers using Duplo pieces. As a result, we created a “Feed the Duplo Alien” activity.

Feed the Duplo Alien. Sort by colours, shapes and numbers(This post contains affiliate links)

To create four aliens I used Pringle tins. These were an ideal size to fit the Duplo in and, as they had lids on, the bricks could be removed quickly when needed. I used a shark knife to cut out a hole in the Pringle tin which would represent the aliens mouth. As I was short on time I didn’t paint the Pringle tins. Instead I used a variety of laminate and Duck tape. Our four aliens consisted of:

Pringle can Aliens

The “Shark Alien” was made from zebra print sticky vinyl. I used white card for the teeth and black card for the mouth outline. The card was stuck down with double side tape. We gave this alien yellow adhesive Wiggly Eyes.

For the “Tongue Alien” I covered it in wood effect self adhesive vinyl and used red ribbon for its tongue. I used a sharp knife to add two small holes to the lid and pushed through two red pipe cleaners. Finally we added red Wiggly Eyes.

Ways to recycle a Pringle tin

The “Green Alien” was made with British Racing Green Duck Tape. I added teeth to the bottom of its mouth and gave it a single blue Wiggly Eye. To its lid I added four small pipe cleaners.

Finally the “Rainbow Alien” was made using rainbow Duck Tape. It had two blue pipe cleaners coming out of its lid and two green Wiggly Eyes.

I added sticky labels to our bricks and used a marker pen to write a shape and a number. Using the four Aliens and Duplo bricks we played three sorting activities:

Colour Sorting

Colour sorting Feed The Aliens

Adam had to sort the colours of the Duplo bricks and place them in the mouth of the Alien which had that colour Wiggly Eye. The green Duplo bricks were fed to the Rainbow Alien as that had green eyes. Adam picked up this activity straight away and ended up feeding two Aliens at the same time.

Shape Sorting

Shape sorting feed the Alien

As I wanted the Aliens to be used for many sorting activities over a long period of time I didn’t add any other distinguishable features to them. Instead I wrote on a Post-It Note and attached it under the Aliens mouth. For this activity I added a triangle, rectangle, square or circle to the Post-It Note. Adam had to hunt through the Duplo bricks to find a shape and then post it into the corresponding Alien. He enjoyed distinguishing between the square and the rectangle bricks.

Number Sorting

Number sorting feed the alien

As I didn’t have 10 Aliens for the Duplo to be sorted into I had to group the numbers. This meant Adam had to focus on what number was written on the Aliens tummy. It took him a little while to understand the process as he assumed that each Alien would only eat one type of number.

Adam enjoyed turning each Duplo brick around until he found the label he needed for each activity. I can see our Aliens being used for many future activities.

Lego activities

Check out these other LEGO and DUPLO activities as part of the #toolsforlearning series:

LEGO Addition Mat for Greater Than/Less Than from Life Over C’s

Duplo Lego Geoboard from Still Playing School

Duplo Consonant Blends Activity from Learning 2 Walk

Educational Playtime with Duplo – Sorting, Estimating and Building from Crafty Mama in ME

LEGO DUPLO Sight Word Towers from Mom Inspired Life

Build A Lego Catapult from Powerful Mothering

Geometric Blueprints with LEGO from Handmade Kids Art

Slippery Lego Duplo Fine Motor Practice from Best Toys 4 Toddlers

Penguin Ice Cube Counting With LEGO from Preschool Powol Packets

Word Building with LEGOS from Sugar Aunts

Hands-on Science: Creating a Water Cycle Project using LEGO from Edventures with Kids

Lego Tower Subtraction Race from The Kindergarten Connection

Lego: 5 reasons you should use it with your kids from The Usual Mayhem

Lego Heart Marble Maze from Lemon Lime Adventures

Dumping Lego Colour Match Activity from Teach me Mommy

Feed the Duplo Alien from Adventures of Adam

How To Create A Duplo Block Painting from Raising Little Superheroes

Letter Sequencing with Lego Duplo from School Time Snippets

Lego ordering, days of the week from In The Playroom

Dental Flossing with Duplo from Study at Home Mama

LEGO Math Ten Frame Games from Lalymom

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Lucy says

    What a great idea. And a good excuse to eat pringles too! Always love home made toys and my son is in a real posting/sorting phase so would enjoy this. #letkidsbekids

    Reply

    • Emma Edwards says

      I love the posting phase and this may detract from the wrong type of posting (ie the keys through the letter box!). Enjoy those Pringles!

      Reply

  11. Lukeosaurus And Me says

    This is such an amazing idea! I’ve been looking at doing a few sorting activities with Luke lately, I’ll definitely pin this and try it with him as soon as possible (i’ll have to use something other than pringle tins as this mumma is on a diet…sobbing in the corner)! Ray xx

    Reply

  13. becky says

    wahhhhh….I jut threw all our Christmas pringle tubes away! but what an excuse to buy more huh!

    Thanks for linking to #ToddlerApprovedTuesday

    Reply

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