Boxes and boxes of loose Legos covered a table in the basement of the Forbes Library in Northampton as 7 year-old Matthew Graham-Moga and his little brother, Anders, 4, built to their hearts content.
“This is pretty fun,” Matthew said, glancing up briefly from the multicolored car he was building.
To passersby who were browsing the stacks of books nearby, their efforts might have looked like child’s play. But there’s more to it than that, says Dr. Joyce Thatcher, a Northampton-based licensed educational psychologist.
“Legos and construction activities are among the essential building blocks for developing the neural networks leading to greater creativity, flexibility, imagination and perhaps most critically, problem-solving,” Thatcher said.
That’s because when building with Legos or other blocks, children unknowingly learn “the practice of negotiation,” she continued. They also examine patterns and learn to solve complex riddles by visualizing solutions,. Legos can be an effective way for parents to encourage these skills, which are essential for a child’s development.
“Any activity which involves a patterned, repetitive activation of the senses (including sight, hearing, touch, and ‘interoception,’ or the sensing of one’s internal sensations), will stimulate neurological development low in the brain,” said Dr. Stephen Bradley, a licensed mental health counselor and licensed independent clinical social worker who practices in Northampton. Bradley noted that he most often works with children who have experienced some sort of developmental trauma.
“Regular engagement with Legos provides sight (colors), touch, sound (the clicking of the Legos together in large or small amounts), as well as activating fine motor control and higher organizational functions and associated neural networks further up in the brain in the cortex region. The combination of these different stimuli is part of what makes Legos so fascinating,” he said.
Legos are a staple therapy tool in his work, Bradley said. Many of the kids he works with have trouble interacting with other children — for example, those who have Autism Spectrum Disorder. Sometimes, “they will demonstrate remarkable ability to organize in fine detail and precision their Lego creatives, but struggle with interpersonal interaction,” he continued. And besides that, building with Legos provides Bradley with an opportunity to sit with a child while they’re playing in order to observe and talk to them.
In his experience, Bradley said kids who “have penchant for fine motor skills tend to enjoy Legos most.”
Leigh Graham, Anders’s and Matthew’s mother, says she and her husband, Steve Moga, started bringing the boys to the library when Matthew began showing an interest in building with Legos. For Graham, who was looking on as they were building, the impact of their play doesn’t come as a surprise.
Both Graham and Moga teach urban planning at a collegiate level. Graham teaches at City University of New York and Moga is a professor at Smith College.
At home, the brothers often build Legos together, she said. They started with Duplos, which are large plastic versions of Legos, when they were little. Over time, their construction projects have become more complex.
“Both of our kids are good with spatial analysis and shapes and putting things together,” Graham said.
Matthew, especially, showed an aptitude for understanding spatial relationships in drawings early on, his father said. He also enjoys following directions to put together Lego sets. Moga says he suspects this is because Matthew is a visual learner.
“It fits in to how he thinks — those instructional booklets are a series of pictorial instructions rather than text,” Moga said. “Anders is only 4, so we’re still learning about his interests and styles. But for Matthew, who’s 7, he is a highly visual thinker. He sometimes can see something or remember something and then create a drawing of it that’s remarkable in its detail.”
Besides being a way to help children think spatially, the weekly Lego club is a chance for them to be creative with others. When the program started about two years ago, said Sarah Johnson, head of head of children’s and young adult services at Forbes Library, children were given a prompt such as, “build a spaceship” to spark their creativity. Now, they give the kids free rein.
“We found that kids want to build what they want to, and we’ve empowered them to do that,” Johnson said. “Kids’ imaginations run wild when they’re playing. … Children learn through play, and Legos are this wonderful open-ended activity.”
And while serving as a creative outlet, playing with Legos can double as a social activity when children build with others, Thatcher said.
“In conjunction with any sort of creative, cooperative play immediately available to children, it becomes a major tool for cognitive and social development supplementing the curriculum children need to master at school,” she said. “There is no underestimating what sort of enhancements to child development Lego play can have in a youngster’s mind and overall well being.”
On average, the Lego club at Forbes Library attracts about a half dozen kids each week, says Callie Sieh, a library assistant. Sieh was directing the weekly meeting last week. This week, she added an extra table so that more kids could play.
Andy Castillo can be reached at acastillo@gazettenet.com.
The Lego Club at Forbes Library meets every Tuesday from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. in the Community Room. While the club is recommended for children ages 5 and up, Johnson said it’s up to parents’ discretion whether or not their child might be ready for the club. Forbes Library is at 20 West St. in Northampton.
Following are a few other Lego club programs at area libraries: The Edwards Public Library in Southampton will host its monthly Lego club meeting Lego Club Feb. 5 at 4 p.m., and throughout the school year on the first Tuesday of every month at the same time. The Southampton library is at 30 East St.
The next Lego club meeting at The Emily Williston Memorial Library in Easthampton will be held Jan. 28 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Creations will remain on display at the library until the club’s next meeting. The Easthampton library is at 9 Park St.
Gaylord Memorial Library in South Hadley will host its next weekly Lego club meeting tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m. For more information call Lizzie Meier at 413-538-5047. The South Hadley Library is at 2 Canal St.