Taking your kids to Paris, London or Pisa might not be in the budget but you can turn their building blocks into the city’s most famous landmarks. What a great way to introduce learning about far away places by using your kid’s own blocks. This was so simple and can be redone with so many different themes like these animal ones ,or faces you don’t even need a printer if you want to hand draw the pictures. My son didn’t participate in making the blocks ( I think he gets enough crafts, what do you think?) but from toddler to school age kids can color or draw the buildings too.
- Gather your materials. You will need some building blocks. Any will do but here is my opinion- we used Fisher-Price Little People Builders Blocks
, they are big, snap together but not too tightly. They let me be sorta sloppy with the contact paper. If there was some bunched up I could still snap them together. Duplo is less forgiving so you will need to only get contact paper on the side none on the top where the blocks come together. Wood blocks would work well but might frustrate younger ones who want them to stay together. You will also need pictures of whatever buildings you want to use, scissors, contact paper and clear tape.
- Start by laying out what blocks you will need for each building.
- Now here I did it two ways. I first cut the image into the pieces for the blocks
, then cut the contact paper and put it on.
It was tedious.
- The other way was to use one large piece of contact paper place the image on it face down, lay the blocks on it, make snips where you need to cut.
- Cut and apply to the blocks. This worked WAY better. I am not the most patient or careful because my window for doing anything without kids interrupting is tiny these days but as you can see even not too careful turned out great.
- Put them together!
- Time to play – he may not have participated in the making but he sure did with the playing.
- It’s mega-landmark!
RockerMom says
Those are so cool!!
Sylvie Créative says
The idea and the application is great allie!
Natalie says
I love these! I love that they are puzzles and I love the way they can be added to other play, like the train set, to create little worlds! Brilliant!
Jenae {I Can Teach My Child!} says
We did something similar with pictures of animals a while ago: http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2011/06/animal-mix-up-legos.html
Meggie says
Wow! What a great idea- we already are drowning in these blocks so it’s something great to do with them all!
Toddler Approved says
love this! we might need to try this with my skyscrapers pictures we created a week or two ago.
Kelly says
I really like this idea! What a fun way to learn various landmarks.
KateKS says
What a great idea! I love it!
mama roses says
How cute! I love the 3D effect and ‘hands-on’ learning. Just picked up a flash card set from Target on landmarks. This beats them all!! No need to visit the places, either 🙂 !!
traceybee says
This is genius!!!