Put your pets to the test!

• Age: 6+
• Time (minutes): 30 min.
• Number of people: 2+

OK, so here’s a really fun play idea you can try with your kids: a LEGO® Friends pet race, packed with obstacles and creative twists.

The setup goes like this: the LEGO Friends are having a sleepover-slumber-party kinda thing. And, naturally, they brought their pets along. Everyone’s having a blast, and then someone suggests... a pet obstacle race!

You know the kind: with jumps, poles to weave around, and even tunnels they have to speed through.

Two points you can suggest to your kids to make the whole thing even more fun: number the obstacles so they remember which order the animals have to complete the course...

... and think about how different animals would handle the challenge. A bunny might find it easier to jump over some obstacles than a doggie would (although these are LEGO Friends animals we’re talking about – the sky is the limit!).

Here are a few obstacle ideas to get your kids started:

Steps

STEP 1: A Frame

With your bricks, make a triangle structure that looks like the capital letter ‘A’. In dog agility competitions, animals run up and down them as quickly as they can.

STEP 2: Weave poles

Find 6 long, thin LEGO elements (like ski poles or wands) and find ways to attach them onto a baseplate. Space them out evenly, in a line, and make sure there is enough room for your miniature pet to squeeze through! The idea is they weave through each pole (passing on the left, then the right, then the left… and so on!).

STEP 3: Pause table

A simple one – just build a square structure slightly off the ground. In competitions, animals have to jump up and sit still on it for 5 seconds, before jumping off and completing the rest of the course!

STEP 4: Jumps

Here, you can have a lot of fun. You can start with simple, low jumps that might look like two ordinary 2x4 bricks placed lengthways, side by side. But you can expand them higher, deeper and fancier! You could build jumps that are dragon-themed, or robot-themed, or anything themed!

For the expert builders, you could even try making tire jumps, which are rings (or tires) held in mid-air by a structure, that animals have to jump through.

STEP 5: See-saw

Another one for the expert builders… Can you build a see-saw that moves on a pivot as the animal climbs over it?