Roll it, Build it, LEGO Fun!
In this lesson, children will roll the dice and build their LEGO creations.
Learning Goals:
This lesson will help children meet the following educational standards:
- Develop beginning skills in the use of science and engineering practices such as observing, asking questions, solving problems, and drawing conclusions
- Understand important connections and concepts in science and engineering
Learning Targets:
After this lesson, children should be more proficient at:
- Expressing wonder and curiosity about their world by asking questions and solving problems
- Developing and using models to represent their ideas, observations and explanations through activities such as drawing, building or modeling with clay
- Using mathematical and computational thinking
- Generating explanations and communicating ideas and/or conclusions about their investigations
Step 1: Gather materials.
- LEGO bricks or Duplos blocks, including mini-figures and vehicles
- Dice
- Divided condiment tray with six sections and a circle center
- Marker
- Optional: LEGO base plate (helpful, but not necessary)
Step 2: Introduce activity.
- Explain that today the children are going to roll the dice and build LEGO creations.
- Write the numbers 1-6 on the divided tray.
- Fill the sections of your tray with different types of LEGO bricks, figures and vehicles.
- Include many mini-figures. Children tend to create more stories when they have more figures to add to their creations.
- Place the die in the center of the tray.
Step 3: Engage children in lesson activities.
- Explain that the game begins with the youngest child using the center section to roll the die.
- When the child rolls a number, the child must select a brick to build with from the tray section with the corresponding number.
- Play passes to the next player.
- Play ends when there are no bricks left or when the children decide that their creation is complete.
Step 4: Engineering vocabulary
- Attribute: A feature of an object
- Base: The part of a building that sits on the ground
- Combine: To add materials together to create a new, changed material
- Design: To create a plan for something that will be built
- Test: To try out an idea to see if it works or not
Suggested Books
- Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale
- When I Build With Blocks by Niki Alling
Music and Movement
Outdoor Connections
Web Resources
- Check out this Roll and Build LEGO game for kids at No Time for Flash Cards.
I enjoy observing the children with Legos because you can view first hand their imagination
Children also learn how to stack and what will and will not work. They learn through trail and error.