Lucite cubes look stunningly beautiful with all their bright rainbow colours, but I wondered if they would actually be a useful addition to our open ended toy collection. Read on to find out some of the ways that we have played with them so far 🌈
Welcome to this weeks blog post. This week we are looking at invitations to play and play ideas using the Bauspiel Lucite Cubes 🌈
Buying a new resource/toy is exciting as your child/students get to explore all the play possibilities, but there is also the worry that the new toy won't get played with very much considering the cost.
After seeing the Bauspiel Lucite cubes used on many social media play accounts I decided to buy some for Miss 5.
I was still not totally sure that she would like them and actually play with them, so I decided to buy a few loose cubes when they were on sale from Children of the Wild. They sell them separately, so you are able to choose which colours you would like and how many of each. I ended up buying 12 cubes in total, with pairs of colours. This is a great option if you are also unsure if they will be played with and don't want to commit to a bigger pack to begin with.
After having our few cubes and seeing how much Miss 5 enjoyed playing with them, I decided to buy a 20 pack from The Creative Toy Shop to add to our collection.
Although we have not had them for very long, the cubes have already been played with in many different ways. Keep reading to see 10 fun ideas for playing with lucite cubes.
Important * Please note that small parts can be a choking hazard and are recommended for ages 3+. All play shown here was supervised and used with ages 5+
10 Fun Play Ideas Using Lucite Cubes:
Under the Sea Invitation to Play - Rainbow Coral Reef and Cave
Open-ended toys and resources have so many play possibilities and allow your child to use their imagination.
This was a really fun invitation to play for Miss 5, that started with blue playdough and some sea animals and ended up growing into the sea small world you see below in the photos.
I started poking some bits of cut up pipe cleaner into the playdough and told Miss 5 it was a coral reef. She liked this idea and started to play with the resources indendently. Miss 5 enjoyed using our Grimms wave to make a cave for her little box fish and using loose parts, including the cubes to make the entrance hidden. She wanted me to play with her, so I used some of our Grapat pieces to make a brightly coloured coral reef.
Most our ocean animal figurines shown here are Collect A brand, with a couple of Schleich brand. The Big Book of the Blue is a beautiful book about the ocean. The yellow little bubble stuff pictured is play foam.
Seal Small World Play Tray
Another simple invitation to play that was enjoyed by Miss 5. This started as just the lucite cubes in the tray by themselves. When interest was lost, Miss 5 and I added in some Grimms pebbles and some seals together. I find that she engages a lot longer with things that she helps to set up.
Here we used our QToys sand tray with a blue Sarah's Silk, our Bauspiel cubes, Grimms pebbles and some seal figurines. This tray was played with multiple times.
Pictured below: A couple of days later the play tray was added to our sea themed table with some blue playdough. Miss 5 enjoyed hiding the cubes in playdough and using them to make some stands for the Nins who had won medals in the Olympics.
Imaginative play using the different toys
Exploring All the Rainbow Colours on the Light Panel with Lucite Cubes 🌈
A light panel has a way of making open ended materials look even more beautiful and inviting.
The cubes are a perfect resource to pair with a light panel. Below we created a sensory play tray on the light panel with a container, some chickpeas and our cubes. The light made the colours look very bright and beautiful on the light panel. We also used the light panel with some of our rainbow sensory blocks. Our light panel is the A3 sized panel from Educating Kids. We got ours when they had a sale.
Another play tray - this time we used the cubes, some sequins and a little brush.
This play tray ended up with some Nins in it, with the cubes becoming their bath tub and the parent Nin sweeping the floor. Then it became the sea with our Bauspiel window blocks as boats. The cubes are a good resource for imaginative play.
Imaginative Child-Led Play
The photo below shows how Miss 5 used the cubes in her child-led play to create a dinosaur nest, complete with dinosaur eggs (Grimms coloured balls). There are so many possibilities for child-led play with the cubes. They are an open-ended toy, which means that your child can play with them in any way that they like.v
Dinosaur Forest Small World Play
A sunny spot on a Winter's day made a beautiful place to play. This invitation to play started as some mumma mindfulness time making a mandala with the Grapat mandala pieces. After I had made my mandala, I added in some dinosaurs and the basket of loose parts as an invitation to explore and create.
Miss 5 decided to make the mandala into the dinosaur's house and enjoyed clearing room on the wooden platter. The loose parts became their furniture. Miss 5 wanted me to play with her, so I started adding loose parts on the table. She decided that it was a forest and enjoyed adding more pieces and playing with the dinosaurs in the forest. The cubes work well for small world play.
So many beautiful rainbow colours.
In the Sunlight ☀️
A super simple idea - play with the cubes in a sunny spot, either inside or out. This is a really fun way to explore light and colour. The cubes look beautiful in a sunny spot with the light shining through.
Looking for a fun printable to use with your lucite cubes?
Visit the playful printables shop ...
Pretend Cooking with Loose Parts
Loose parts are perfect for all kinds of imaginative play. Here we used a range of loose parts including, buttons, reusable icecubes, transparent pebbles, alphabet puzzle pieces and the Bauspiel lucite cubes.
I set this up as an invitation to play for Miss 5 after noticing she was really interested in using a set of scales that she found in the kitchen. I put out this range of loose parts that she decided to use for weighing using the scales and making pretend food for her baby dolls and us to have too.
This was a really fun way to play. Just add in some bowls and a spoon or two and let your little ones imagination take over. A set of scales from the kitchen is a really fun addition that brings in some learning about maths too.
Role-playing cooking with loose parts and lots of imagination
Counting with Lucite Cubes
The cubes are a fantastic hands on resource for counting. They would work well at home for learning or in a classroom setting. Here we paired our lucite cubes with our Hey Doodle reusable Hundreds mat. These two resources work really well together.
I set this up for Miss 5 with the hundreds mat and then a few cubes sitting on the first few numbers. When she discovered it, she enjoyed putting the rest of the cubes on the mat until she had used them all up. She counted and worked out that we have 32 cubes. Miss 5 did comment afterwards that we need some more cubes to get all the way to 100.
Skip Counting with Lucite Cubes
Using the hundreds mat again with the cubes, we explored skip counting and making patterns. I worked with Miss 5 as she placed cubes on every second number. Those numbers without a cube we whispered the number name and those with the cube we said out loudly out loud. Once we had placed all the cubes to 30, we practiced skip counting, whispering and counting out loud as I pointed at the numbers.
The cubes could be used on a hundreds mat like this for making other patterns, such as even and odd, skip counting by 5's 10's etc. There are many possibilities. These two resources could be set up in a classroom as an invitation to play.
Free Printable Lucite Cube Colour Matching Pictures
Here's a fun free VIP printable to use with your lucite cubes!
Read the blog post here: Colour Matching Activity for Kids - Free VIP Printable
Thank you for reading this week's blog post about Lucite Cubes. I hope you found some inspiration for play and learning from some of these 10 play ideas.
If you have any questions or any ideas for play that you would like add, please comment below.
So far Miss 5 has really been enjoying playing and learning with her cubes in a range of different ways. I think they are a beautiful resource in our open-ended toy collection and we will probably end up buying some more in the future.
(Update - we ended up buying a tray of 100 more lucite cubes! They have been very well loved over the years since this post was first written and still are).
Until next time, have fun learning in a playful way!
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