My daughter comes from a creative family of painters, sculptors and writers. Her teachers have sent home many praises for the work that she does in class. I have a stack of drawings that that have gone into storage. I’ve watched her over years build on her creativity through different mediums as well. I love watching her discover and troubleshoot in her mind. It’s a fascinating process and She makes funny faces while it’s happening too.
It’s so important to encourage creativity in girls at an early age. It makes them more prone to taking heavy thinking jobs like engineers, architects or even a novelist! We’ve been building with LEGO® blocks for a long time. We have a giant box of LEGO® Duplo bricks that my youngest daughter can play with also. They make houses, birthday cakes with imaginary candles that need to be blown out and other fun things. I love hearing of what they have thought of and built for me. Their imagination is limitless!
This is the first LEGO® set that we’ve owned with smaller bricks and instructions that lead to something specific. At first my daughter was a little overwhelmed when she saw how many pieces there were. After I showed her how to read the directions she dove right into building the LEGO® Friends juice bar. I was surprised at how focused and concentrated she became during the build. She realized that if you count the pegs on the top, she could find the right size piece faster. That brought a mathematical factor into our build. 
Something I realized while watching her build was how neat it is to see something built in layers. It’s like a 3D puzzle that you can make into anything your mind can cook up. That’s endless possibilities. Then my mind starting to wander and thinking about the people that design the great LEGO® sets that our kids and plenty of adults enjoy. The amazing statues that start from single bricks and turned into fire breathing dragons. Then I wanted to build a LEGO® city in my closet so I snapped out of my day dreaming and focused on helping JaMonkey build her juice bar.
Whether it’s a LEGO® Friends set or a pile of loose bricks, it unlocks a little girls creativity and gives her a chance to play and build things that she is proud to call her own. Construction play allows children to be creative in a way that combines logic and reasoning with playfulness and imagination. This type of play helps children grasp the importance of persistence as they develop a sense of pride for their completed model or their own creation.
According to research from The LEGO® Foundation, children learn about themselves, others, and the world through play. LEGO® building is one of the few play patterns capable of channeling creativity towards solving specific questions or problems and into different unique expressions, giving form to our imagination, feelings and identities. Construction play makes it possible to harness curiosity and playfulness simultaneously in pursuit of learning and creativity. (As reported in Defining Systematic Creativity report summary)
LEGO® Friends has partnered with a great program called Girls on the Run® which mission statement says, “We inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.” Our girls are our future. We need to make sure that they are breaking the molds and shattering the glass ceilings. Changing the way we look at women starts with teaching our girls. Building the creativity and the drive to build a beautiful future.
Check out the time-lapse video we did of our LEGO® Friends build. (You should watch the whole thing, you’ll get a giggle at the end.)
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
