# DUPLO Animal House with a String Lake
> Open-ended DUPLO building: make a house for toy animals, then outline a lake beside it with string and add blue construction paper your child labels. It works as a simple pretend-play and early-writing activity.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/duplo-creations/
- Ages: 2–5 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: low
- Time: prep 5 min, activity 30 min
- Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class
- Skills: fine-motor, construction, pretend-play, spatial-reasoning, early-writing

## Materials (one batch)
- LEGO DUPLO bricks
- Toy animals (e.g. DUPLO animals)
- String, yarn or ribbon (household)
- 1 sheet Blue construction paper
- 1 piece Pencil or crayon (household)
- 1 piece Camera or phone (optional) (household)

## Safety
- Supervise young children around string or ribbon, and put it away after play.
- Keep small toy figures and accessories away from children who still mouth toys.

## Before you start
- Clear a stretch of floor and set out the DUPLO bricks and animals.

## Steps
1. Pour the DUPLO bricks out on the floor.
2. Build a house for all the animals.
3. Move the animals into their new house. They can all live in the same place!
4. Lay string on the floor to make a lake next to the house.
5. Put blue construction paper inside the lake to make it blue.
6. Write the word LAKE on the paper.
7. Take a picture of your creation before it gets put away.
8. If it gets knocked down, sing 'We are builders, we are fixers!' and build it again.

## Tips
- Please catalog your kid's creations. It would be amazing to see them after years. I sure wish I had cataloged ours since she was about 14 months old.
- 'We are builders, we are fixers!' can be sung to the tune of any catchy TV jingle. We sing it when a little sibling wrecks a creation. It calms her and reminds her that she can rebuild it.
- Let them make the extras themselves. The blue construction paper and the writing were all her (well, she spelled it 'LAK'), and I was grinning ear to ear.
- Go along with the pretending: 'I'm just pretending that the polar bear and the elephant live in the same place, ok?'

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

This is a place to share all of our LEGO DUPLO creations, which by the way comes by pretty often in our household. We love to build houses, towers, walls, cities, castles, most of all, we love hanging zoos and forests. So you will always see wild animals hanging out in our lego creations. I sure wish I had cataloged Big A’s block creations since she was about 14 months old. It would have been awesome to see the progress! Any DUPLO loving moms/dads reading this, please catalog your kid’s creations. It would be amazing to see them after years. We are builders.. We are fixers! sung to the tune of any catchy jingle you see on TV. This is the song we sing to Big A to stop her from throwing a fit when Baby A completely wrecks her creations. Seems to calm her and remind her that she can re build it. A house for all the animals. Mommy "I'm just pretending that the polar bear and the elephant live in the same place, ok?"

 A lake adjacent to the house for all the animals.

 The string lake needed some blue. The blue construction paper and the writing was all her ( well, she spelled it "LAK"). I was grinning ear to ear after she was done :)

 Shared on [Little Builders](http://www.mummymummymum.com/builders)