Freak369's Full Review: Lego Duplo Green Baseplate
When my boys first started to get into construction toys I broke out in to a cold sweat. Having a huge collection of older castle sets, I could just see their peanut butter covered fingers grabbing for my prized pieces and ripping them apart. I started them all off with the Duplo sized bricks so they could get the basics of building, stacking and learn colors but that was never enough for them. No, they wanted to build huge walls or see how high they could stack them before they would fall over. This is all part of early learning and something that, if you can stand the noise, will teach them how to build things that won’t fall apart. The larger sets that I purchased for them had some medium sized base plates but when they wanted to build bigger things they needed bigger base plates. Enter the Duplo Green Base Plate, at fifteen inches by fifteen inches it is a pretty big plate that kids can use to build almost anything on. Just like the Lego Base Plate, this one allows kids to have something to anchor their masterpieces to, gives them a solid foundation to build on and makes moving things from one area to another a piece of cake.
Duplo Green Base Plate
Green isn’t the only color that you can buy the Duplo base plates in but in my opinion it’s the best color to start with. Why? Because most kids start out building houses or buildings and the green color can double for grass. That might sound like a very simplistic reason but you have to stop and think; this is something that kids will be using and what are some of the things that kids are familiar with? As they get a little more into it you may have to get some blue ones for water but to start with, this is the best choice. As much as they would the to admit it, the Duplo bricks are still in our househo9ld and still get played with. They use them for building walls that would take hours to assemble if you were using the standard Lego pieces and the base plates that I bought oh so many years ago still see a lot of use too. They are used to close off the ends of scenes, stabilize the larger Duplo walls and a few of them have been cut up to make a pathway to Annabelle’s castle.
Do kids really need a base plate? Of course not but do kids really need a television or video games? No, but having a base plate allows them to get more out of their blocks, lets them challenge themselves to build bigger and better things and lets them take the things that they have learned about using the blocks and use that knowledge to move on to other aspects of building. From what I’ve seen kids are either into the Duplo blocks or they could care less about them. If you have a child that likes to stack or connect them that’s great, chances are unless they start to build tall things then a base plate won’t be something that they’ll make use of right away. This plate is 15 x 15 so it has more than enough room to build bigger things without running out of space but if that happens, don’t rush over and try to fix it. That’s an important aspect of learning; figuring out the space of something and building within it.
Care & Cleaning
For the most part the Duplo base plates are sturdy things that will last for years if you don’t have hellions that insist on using them as weapons. The older styled ones had square edges but all the newer ones have the much safer rounded corners, less accidents, less of a chance of someone getting cut on them and if they are dropped on the corners, they won’t crack or splinter. To clean them I suggest soaking them in some warm soapy water then using a finger brush or scrubber pad to get out the dirt that could be hiding between the pegs. Since the pegs are larger than the Lego sized ones they get dirtier a little easier so keeping them clean is more of a challenge. I have cut up several of these but found it almost impossible to do with an X-Acto knife. No, to cut these babies you need to use some type of a flat saw. Thanks to a kind neighbor who had a whole garage full of machinery we were able to cut up the base plates to make a sculpted walkway, cut away area for a pond [a blue base plate was sacrificed for that little project] and several other things that boys planned out. Most of these were done long after they outgrew the Duplo blocks and sets and were sort of a trial run to see how they would look and if they could achieve the same thing with the Lego sized counterparts.
The Bottom Line
While this isn’t a necessity for a kid it is nice for them to have to make use of. If they are anything like my boys the base plate will see a lot of use even after they have moved on to the standard Lego building sets. You can find this at most toy stores or online at the Lego World Shop with a suggested retail price of $8.99 to $10.99 [a little more online] depending on where you shop. These base plates are almost indestructible and will give your child years of creative play but please make sure that they are aware of the dangers that can come with hitting another child with one. They are made of plastic but if you’ve ever gotten smacked with one of these, you can attest that it does sting. For little builders, this base plate is a great way to enhance the replay value of the bricks and bits they have. The price might seem a little high for a piece of plastic but once you see them building away and smiling when they make something new, you won’t think twice about the price.
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