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Posted by Maxine Cleminson - - 2 comments

One look at Pinterest will give you a gazillion fancy-pants ideas for Lego themed parties... from beautiful party favours to amazing cakes, you will see it all and more! I had a good go at replicating some of these ideas and even came up with a few of my own.








However, one thing I often struggle to find when planning a party is ideas for games & activities outside the normal pinata and pin-the-tail-on-the-BLANK type of things. This is especially tricky the older the kids become as they begin to get quite discerning. While a bunch of 4 year olds will happily entertain themselves with a few hours of side-by-side playing, older kids can easily get quite raucous and need something a bit more challenging!

This was the case recently, when the Big One asked for a Lego themed party for his 8th birthday. To be honest, I was hoping that as he approached his tweens I would be able to get away with taking a few of his close friends to the cinema or something similarly 'grown up' but he was insistent he wanted a party. I was pleased to indulge him as this will probably be the last big 'party' for him at home until he wants to illicitly invite a load of unwashed hooligan teenagers around to ours for a bit of underage drinking and general carnage (he will live to regret it if he tries it) or for a milestone like his 18th birthday!

After a bit of thinking I came up with the following party activities and games and they were a resounding success and perfect for the 6-10 age group.

First of all a tip: Assign each child a yellow square paper plate (with a Lego face drawn and their name written on it with permanent marker). This is their plate for the entire party to store things on, so it should be kept somewhere safe.




Activity 1 - Fast Build Contest
Lego frequently produces promotional sets in plastic bags. They are often sold next to the tills in places like Target and are inexpensive (around $4-5 each). Buy enough of the same set for each child attending the party (try ebay if you're struggling to get multiple sets the same)... they can double as a party favour for the child to take home! Cut the tops off every bag and place on their plate without tipping out the contents. Sit the children on the floor with their plate in front of them. Blow a whistle to commence the Fast Build race... the children tip the bag contents onto their plate and assemble the model from the instructions. The winning child is the one who builds the model (accurately) the quickest!

Activity 2 - L-Egg-Oh! Tower Team Contest
For this activity you will need to prepare in advance a bag of Legos for each team (a set of plain building blocks like the one below is useful for this). For the sake of fairness, you may wish to make sure that each team has the same number/variety of blocks. Divide the children into groups (3-4 children per group). You may wish to sort out the groups in advance to a) get the right mix of personalities, b) avoid arguments and c) prevent someone from feeling left out! Give each group a bag of Legos and space them out on the floor. Giving each group a tray will help to contain the spread of Legos as well! The challenge is for the groups to build a tower from blocks that can support an (uncooked) egg. The group with the tallest tower wins, although you may want to hand out additional prizes for the best 'teamwork'!
















Activity 3 - Lego Derby Car Team Contest
You can either stick with the same groups or mix the kids up into new teams. You can use the same bags of Lego, but make sure that each bag contains some wheels/axles. Set up a gravity racetrack (similar to that used in Pinewood Derby). I used Hot Wheels track pieces to create two long race tracks side by side and clamped them onto a ledge using the G-clamps. The challenge for each team is to design a Derby Car from Legos. When the cars are completed, take it in turn to race them until a winner is declared! You can also hand out additional prizes for 'coolest car design' or 'teamwork'!












Prize Ideas
Candy is always welcomed by kids, but you can jazz things up a bit by making it into a 'prize'! I used thin (1" x 8") cellophane bags to create 'tubes' of Lego candy, and then printed Lego heads to create toppers which I cut out and glued in place to seal the end and cover the staple at the top.








I also create Lego trophies by gluing a Lego 2x2 flat tile on the front of a plastic trophy with a hot glue gun! You could also use medals!







Happy party planning!

2 Responses so far.

  1. Anonymous says:

    Thanks a lot for inspiration! I will keep that in mind for the 5th Birthday of my twin boys. :)

    Claudia from Munich, Germany

  2. Unknown says:

    Those are wonderful ideas. Can you please suggest me from where can I get the print outs of lego labeled circles for party bags? Thanks

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