Preschool With LEGO

We've been having loads of preschool LEGO fun lately. There is so many fabulous ideas on using LEGO this theme was so simple for me to put together.

All I needed to do was visit my Pinterest LEGO board and it was all there waiting for me!

Stamp, Count and Write the number

Measuring with LEGO

Counting bricks. 

He chose to hand draw his bricks as opposed to placing the actual bricks onto the strips.

Matching the names to the characters. 

The only two he didn't know was viking and mime.

Ink pad stamping with Duplo blocks.

Of course there's always plenty of building going on.

Colour Patterns

Mazes

A closer look at mini figure sports

Counting Duplo

Rhyming Words

Roll, add and colour

Plus others that didn't get photographed. What little boy doesn't like playing with LEGO. Thanks to the wonderful people that put together all of these LEGO bits and pieces.

You can access all of them on my LEGO Pinterest board.

Lego Club

We recently started a Lego Club for our budding Lego enthusiasts with a group of home schoolers that we all know well.

It was kind of unknown territory for most of us, but something we had discussed several times in the past, so we were very excited when the resident home school dad among us put his hand up to organise the club and run it out of his home.

That’s a huge thing to offer up your home on a regular basis to a group of eight families. We all really appreciate him offering to do this for us.

So far we’ve only met twice, but there are grand plans for the club. Eventually we see those that are serious Lego builders to move on to the realms of Lego Robotics and possibly even competing in First Lego League. But it’s baby steps for us at the moment.

During the first meet the children, girls and boys, ranging in ages from about five to eleven (pre-schoolers have Duplo off to the side) spent their time in free form creating. This allowed those that had never been into the home to feel more comfortable and to gain a general vibe for the club overall.


Week two, our most recent meet up, saw things pushed up a notch. What a fabulous couple of hours. Yes there was noise! It’s to be expected when you have a group of eager creators in one space. But it was all kept to a dull roar, just a bunch of delightful children, conversing about the tasks that were before them.


First challenge was to get the children interacting, talking, discussing and most of all using their powers of communication. Children separated into pairs. One person chose ten bricks. Then the second person had to sift through the Lego tubs and find an identical ten bricks to their partner.

From there, they sat back to back, whilst one of them began to build, slowly piece by piece. As they chose and added a new piece they called out the details to the partner. What the piece looked like. Where and in what position the piece was being placed.



The aim was for both people in a pair to end up with pieces that looked as much like the other as they could get. This was a real challenge and definitely heightened their communication and listening skills.

Second challenge for the afternoon was to move a Lego Mini Figure at least 5 floor tiles (approx 1 metre) without touching the Mini Figure.

Cars, sling shots, ramps, balloon cars, and catapults were all some of the designs the children came up with.


Whilst this club is definitely taking the children out of their comfort zone, they are loving it. We are all very excited about where our little Lego Club is headed.



Do you participate in a Lego Club with your home school friends? I’d love to hear about it if you do.


P.S I am still alive, even though you might have thought otherwise for the last few months.

Is There Anything You Can't Do With Lego?

Ok so we all know that Lego is just about one of the coolest things ever invented, but seriously is there anything that we can't do with it?

Well, ok, I'm sure there a lot of things but, Lego, really is so very versatile. 

With all of our talk about Australia, Lego Lover was inspired to create his own map of our country, including state divisions and markers for Capital Cities.

I took this before he made some minor improvements, as he wasn't 100% happy with the proportions on Western Australia.

Mapping with Lego! Truly this product is a gem.

Nanoblocks - Micro Building Blocks - Have You Seen These?

On a recent visit to the Art Gallery we decided to have a browse through their store and stumbled across a small display of what appeared to be, mini Lego blocks.

Mini Lego Blocks!!! Yes, well no, not exactly.

They are a Japanese invention - Nanoblocks - to be exact.

These things are tiny. The smallest bricks are just 4mm x 4mm. Have a look in the picture. We've placed a regular 4 x 4 grey lego brick in it with a similar green  Nanoblocks version sitting on top, wow!

The premise being that due to the minute size, the end product of the creations built with Nano blocks are much more realistic.

At this stage there doesn't appear to be a huge range available. Lego Lover chose the Red & Green Macaw with stand. The instructions were easy to follow he put this together effortlessly, whilst relenting how very small the pieces were!! The completed Macaw is only about 5cms in height.

Yes he's already making lists of some of the other designs that he would like to acquire.

If you are in Australia, check out BLOCKSHOP, in the USA, My Nano Block

It looks like we have another creative construction outlet to add to the 'brick addiction' around here ;-)



Disclosure: I purchased our pack of Nanoblocks and have not been compensated in any way for this post.

The Royal Wedding - Lego Style

And here I was thinking that he wasn't interested!

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Crazy About Construction #1: Spaceships

If you've been reading my blog for awhile now you'll know that we have a devoted Lego fan in this house. In fact I'd probably say that the word devoted doesn't even come close, obssessed may be a better way to describe it.

If I can't find B I always know where he is, down in his room constructing something. He loves to build from the instructions and always enjoys the end product after receiving a new piece but his true love is the actual constructing part, the creating, the thinking, the searching for all of those bits (even though it is frustrating at times). That is where the fun is.

I've had friends tell me over the years that their children just aren't into Lego, I guess for some kids that may very well be the case, but I wholeheartedly feel that Lego is something that needs to be 'taught', 'modelled'. Not in the sit down for a lesson sense of the word, but B's dad literally spent hours upon hours plaiyng Lego with him when he was young. Searching for the right piece to fit here or there. He also ensured when they built from instructions that B was reading the instructions as early as he could (since they are pictures anyway) and that he also had to search for the piece himself.

I think over time all of those hours add up and they begin to see things and can imagine what things will look like and what piece they need to do a certain job all in their head. This is where the real fun in Lego begins. Oh yes and a decent collection helps, they need at least enough pieces to make something quite large and then some handy add ons always help the process. You know some wheels, crocodiles, swords, people and all that jazz.

He really needs no guidance at all now and has been at that stage for quite some time. Although he still enjoys dad to play along every now and then! Spaceships and in particular Star Wars spaceships are the order of the day at the moment and I'd like to try and see him tackle other objects. Maybe he just needs a little inspiration so I have decided to set him a theme peridocially and have him build something within the themes guidelines. The theme will be relatively loose as I still want him to have as much control as possible.

To kick it off I chose the obvious and one that I knew he would get to work on immediately, Spaceships. He worked on this over a few days adding some here and a bit there. It has lots of little ships that can break off and work independently of the mother ship.

Here's a few random images of his Spaceship.






I've already set the next theme, Robots. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

Highlights From The Week

~ B is 8 years ~

~ K is 5 years ~

~ Cbub is 15 months ~

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Cbub has had a full on practical life week. He's been a cleaning freak! Every single time I had something out, whether it was the vacuum, mop, duster, broom he wanted to use it. He actually did a pretty good job with a few things. He's been fairly proficient with a cloth and wiping up spills for a while now.

He loved mummy's new Enjo cloth. He thought his blocks needed a bit of sprucing up.



B went over the Blue Series beginning blends from Montessori For Everyone.




He whipped up this dinosaur whilst we were waiting at Daddy's office the other day. He's kinda funky don't you think? I could see him in a children's picture book story.



Cbub with the broom this time. He knew exactly what to do and wasn't fussed at all that it was far too big for him. He actually preferred using it on the carpet where it was so much harder to push...go figure!


Cbub finished off this little under water sticker collage, with blue chalk for the water, whilst B and K completed their Ocean Lapbooks we started whilst on holidays. (post to come on that)



He also had his first water colour painting experience this week. The first couple of minutes all he wanted to do was lick the brush and paint his hand but he eventually got the hang of it and completed 2 masterpieces. He knew when he needed more paint on his brush and kept asking for more.


We had our monthly Art Gallery workshop with our Homeschool Network. The exhibition this time around was inspired by all things Tartan. B created the tartan look collage, the photo really doesn't do it justice, all of that shiny card is quite impressive looking.

This workshop didn't really interest K so she chose just to complete a colouring page. They always have simple activities out that are related in some way to the exhibition, for any of the children that choose not to do the workshop brief.


It was a very creative, hands on week as we also had our monthly Bunnings Workshop. This was, however a bit of a let down. It sounded exciting, making treasure boxes. So lots of hammering with nails. However the timner used was very very hard and well let's just say that they didn't go together quite so well. Chalk it up to experience!


At kindy K has been reading Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein. The teacher left the book out for inspiration and the kids were given these cool sparkly Aboriginal Dot Painting Stickers to create their own pictures.




There's always lots of box construction brought home from kindy, this time it was a rabbit, complete with fluff!



CBub helped B (well tried to knock it down anyway) build this tower out of his large kindy blocks.


He is still completely enthralled by Lego and especially all of the little men. He really feels he's won a prize when he stumbles across some lying around. Can't you tell, just have a look at his face.


We are also completing an ongoing group project with our Homeschool Network. Paper Mache Bucket Heads. This is where they currently are at. I need to try and find some time for us to complete at least another layer this weekend as on Monday we are painting them.

Everyone is eager to see the finished pieces.



Oh look here's my little house maid just finishing off a spot of dusting. Isn't he the sweetest!


And of course B had his weekly Tennis Lesson, he is improving week after week with his skills.

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To see more weekly updates from others visit the following blogs:

Homeschool Highlight Reel: Work and Play Day By Day

Learning Through Love: My Family My Forever

Preschool Corner: Homeschool Creations

Tot School: 1+1+1=1

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