Why My Toddler Likes Lego, Not Duplo

My child is technically in the “Duplo age range” these days, but, friends, he’s totally bored with Duplo. He’ll play with those big bricks for just a few minutes before he gets grumpy and starts smashing.

Now, the typical differentiation advice would be: Start with what’s age-appropriate and then extend it if they finish.

But…

“Age Appropriate” Can Be Inappropriate!

My kid gets bored by the very shape and size of Duplo! You could ask him to build the darn Eiffel Tower out of Duplo and he’d lose interest. Trying to extend Duplo does not work because the material is inherently uninteresting to him. (Now there’s nothing wrong with Duplo. They’re great for a short period in a child’s life. We had many good months with it.)

BUT! Give my kid a handful of Lego pieces, and he’ll build for half an hour straight — and that’s an eternity for his parents! We watch in utter astonishment as he puts his “concentration face” on and snaps the tiniest pieces together. In fact, we find it fascinating that it’s the tiniest of pieces that interest him most.

Why?

Well, as I’ve written before, kids simply want to be interested. It didn’t matter that Duplo was (ahem) “age-appropriate.” The material was just uninteresting to him. Its very simplicity was frustrating.

I think this is something I underestimated as a teacher. I was so worried about kids getting frustrated by complexity, that I overcompensated and frustrated them with simplicity.

Scaffold Down. Don’t Extend Up

And this is true whether we’re working with a toddler, a 5th grader, or a high schooler. We cannot “extend” something that is too simple to begin with.. You can’t stretch a medium shirt to fit someone who needs a large. But you can make a large fit a medium (believe me, my wife has hemmed many pants for me that are too long). It’s much easier to start with something too big and cut it down to size.

Likewise, it’s much easier to aim high and then scaffold down when planning a lesson. This also helps with the “oh a bunch of students finished early again” problem that constantly surprised me as a teacher.

• If kids are bored with checkers, don’t try to “extend checkers.” Give them chess and scaffold down as needed.
• Don’t start with a worksheet and try to “extend” it. The foundation is simply too weak. Begin with a complex task and use worksheets to scaffold if necessary.
• Instead of trying to “extend” a 2nd-grade standard, grab something from 4th grade and scaffold down. Yes, some of your students can definitely handle work two years beyond their grade level.

We do this in all other domains!

The thing is, we do this naturally with kids in all other areas of their lives. We start with something they are interested in. Of course, it’s usually way too complex, so we simplify it as necessary.

• If kids like a sport, we scaffold the game to make it approachable. Kindergarteners around the world play tee-ball. And if a kid no longer needs the tee, we just remove it! They’re free to move towards the real goal. Take a child bowling and they use the same lane as you, but they might have bumpers. But, they might not! Scaffolds are easy to add and remove.
• When I learned violin in 4th grade, we used real instruments and our instructor scaffolded down. He put tape on the fingerboard so we could find the notes. He gave us smaller violins. We learned simple exercises. And kids who were ready could remove those scaffolds. Our best violinist, Howard, did not have tape on his finger board. I did.
• My first grade teacher hosted a chess tournament within our class. Obviously, as we learned, she started with fewer pieces and smaller boards and shorter games. But the top players could simply move faster and get closer to “real chess” by adding more pieces back in and playing full games.

In areas outside of education, we naturally start with what is interesting and then scaffold down only as much necessary. And we remove those scaffolds as fast as we can. Can you imagine forcing a kid to use bumpers in bowling because it’s “age-appropriate.”

Easier, More Interesting, and More Respectful

So we’re all done with Duplo in the Byrd house! We buy small Lego kits and scaffold down, even though they’re technically beyond his age.

It’s so much easier, and so much more respectful, to give students something appropriate to their interests and then scaffold down rather than starting with something (cough cough) “age-appropriate” and then trying to artificially extend it.