Free Early Years activity: Directionality

In this activity children aged between 3 and 5 will learn about directionality, order and position of objects such as up, down, in front and behind. They will sort, classify and serialise objects using attributes such as colour, shape or size.

The new LEGO® DUPLO® Playground Set is the recommended resource to use with this activity, but you could use any DUPLO base boards, bricks and people you have available.

Students are asked to form a line and then say who is in front of them and who is behind. Then place red, yellow, green, orange, brown and blue bricks on a large building plate and show them to the students. Ask students which colour brick is above, below, next to (and so forth) different bricks.

Students are then asked to create a scene in a playground with the DUPLO bricks. Then they are asked to explain where elements are located in relation to each other using the words before, behind, beneath, in front and so forth. They are then asked to carry out other tasks, such as comparing the height of the elements in the playground.

This 30-minute-long lesson plan covering literacy and numeracy topics, is aimed at students aged 3 to 5. You can download the lesson plan by clicking on the images at the bottom of this page.

LEGO DUPLO resources can help meet Learning Values such as literacy, numeracy, knowledge and self-expression. For more information and resources, visit the LEGO Education website.

 

Stay in touch with the world of LEGO® Education

If you don’t have time to keep abreast of the latest news from the world of LEGO® Education on a school day, never fear! Here’s a handy round-up of our pick of the posts to peruse over the weekend.

French engineer Max Castéra has been bringing fun and learning to some of the poorest children in India, with a little help from LEGO® bricks. Max, founder of brickscientist.com recently returned from Delhi where he spent a week teaching science, culture and engineering in conjunction with Tara, a non-profit organisation providing residential services and education for children from some of India’s most vulnerable families. You can read more about Max’s trip and the activities he organised here.

Make primary school maths fun with the latest LEGO® Challenge in Teach Primary magazine which builds children’s confidence using a hands-on method. The ideas focus on how LEGO bricks and LEGO DUPLO® bricks can be used to bring maths activities to life, teaching the specific skills of counting, shape recognition, matching, incidental multiplication and division. Read more about the challenge here.

A grammar school in Northern Ireland has been running special Robot Days for pupils using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education.The Wallace High School in Lisburn, has staged two events so far this year for Year 9 pupils and another is planned in June. Read about the activities and hear from the organising teacher here.

And it was also announced this week that the next generation of LEGO MINDSTORMS Education, the EV3 platform, will start shipping on August 1. Find out more here.

If you’ve always wanted to know what space, engineering and LEGO have in common, watch the Google Science Fair Hangout on Air with Adrian Drake, who devises experiments for the International Space Station using LEGO bricks. Find out more here.

And don’t forget there are lots of other bright ideas to help with that lesson planning on our website and blog. Here are just some of them.

Have a good weekend!

Make maths fun with the LEGO® Challenge

Here’s a new LEGO® Challenge from the latest issue of Teach Primary magazine which builds children’s confidence in maths using a hands-on method that they’ll love.

These activities challenge teachers to do more with the boxes of LEGO® bricks and LEGO DUPLO® bricks that are often to be found in classrooms.

The ideas focus on how these bricks can be used to bring maths activities to life, teaching the specific skills of counting, shape recognition, matching, incidental multiplication and division.

The activities are taken from ‘Back to Basics with Bricks’ written by LEGO Education partner, Hands On Tech.

The book contains 100 different activities across literacy, maths and PHSE. For more information or to buy the book, visit www.handsontech.co.za

This LEGO Challenge is just one of a series of challenges from LEGO® Education Academy Master Trainer Rob Widger. For the Gina the giraffe challenge, click here. For the stadium building challenge, click here. For the character building challenge, click here.

For more about Teach Primary, visit the website.

Happy building!

Looking for lesson ideas? You’re in the right place!

If you’re searching for inspirational lesson plans for the Summer term then take a look at some of the great ideas from LEGO® Education that are guaranteed to grab the attention of students – from pre-schoolers to teenagers.

Get out your LEGO® DUPLO® bricks and try something new. We’ve put together four pages packed with ideas that can be downloaded for free. The pages show you how you can use your existing bricks and figures to help children develop skills in maths, language, personal, social and emotional development and self expression. Find out more here.

Take a fresh approach to literacy learning in primary school, and try one of the latest LEGO Challenges by LEGO Education Training Manager Rob Widger. In the Character Building Challenge, students undertake a series of building activities based on a fiction book they have just finished reading. You can find out more about the challenge here.

In the latest LEGO Bricks in Space lesson, students can investigate how a model airplane will react in microgravity and on Earth, with the help of  astronaut Suni Williams from Expedition 32 who carries out the experiment in Space and explains the importance of robotics on board the International Space Station. You can discover more about the LEGO Bricks In Space lessons here.

You could also download our free Maths lesson to teach children about Base 10, using the LEGO Education WeDo resources. Find out more here.

Try out our free Science lesson using LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT data logging to investigate chemical reactions. In this activity, students in Years 7 to 11 predict how the temperature will change with various chemical reactions and test their predictions, as well as charting and comparing the changes and then publishing their results. Read more here.

And if you’re looking for some personal inspiration, you could drop in on the Learning Creative Learning course led by Mitch Resnick, director of the Lifelong Kindergarten and the LEGO Papert Professor at the MIT Media Lab. Don’t worry, you don’t need to sign up for the course (launched online by Media Lab and P2PU for the first time this year). Just listen to the sessions on YouTube and find out more here.

Remember, there are lots of other great ideas on our website and on our blog so why not explore? Have fun!

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss!

It’s the birthday of much-loved children’s author Dr Seuss tomorrow (March 2) and to celebrate, we encourage you to read There’s a Wocket in my Pocket to your class.

Then ask your students to imagine and create new creatures that could be in your classroom or school. Encourage them to build those creatures using LEGO® Education LEGO® DUPLO®, LEGO System bricks or LEGO Education BuildToExpress sets.

Then take photos of your builds and share them with us on Twitter and Facebook.

Here are some strange creatures we found around our LEGO Education offices to get you started: There’s a Boffee in my Coffee, a Lowl in my Bowl and a Mook in my Book!

Share your creatures! Let your imagination and creativity soar!

Character building with the LEGO® Challenge

Here’s a new LEGO® Challenge created by LEGO® Education Training Manager Rob Widger which you can find in the latest issue of Teach Primary magazine.

In this challenge, students undertake a series of building activities based on a fiction book they have just finished reading.

The children are asked to think about the main characters in the book and to build a model representing their thoughts which they then have to explain to the group. They also get the chance to consider what could have happened next in their book, and to build their ideas.

The challenge encourages lots of discussion and will take their understanding of character and plot to a new level.

To see the challenge in detail click on the image. For Rob Widger’s Gina the giraffe challenge, click here. For his stadium building challenge, click here.

For more about Teach Primary, visit the website.

Happy building!

Get more out of your LEGO® DUPLO® sets!

We all know how much fun children get out of playing and exploring with LEGO® Education LEGO® DUPLO® bricks and people but they can be used for so much more!

To help you get started we have put together four pages packed with ideas that can be downloaded for free here.

The pages show you how you can use your existing bricks and figures to help children develop skills in maths, language, personal, social and emotional development and self expression.

The activities use LEGO DUPLO, but for slightly older children or for those who need more of a challenge, these ideas can be replicated using the smaller System bricks.

Not only will they extend the learning in your nursery or classroom but they will also ensure your children have lots of fun at the same time too!

And if you’ve got some bright ideas for using LEGO DUPLO in your class, why not share them with other professionals by contacting us?

Happy learning!

Preparing for 2030: The recipe for playful learning

Do you know what the year 2030 will look like? While unknown, it is important to point out that today’s 5-year-olds will be entering the workforce around the year 2030 and they will need to be hard-working and motivated problem-solvers. So how do we help the 5-year-old of today along the path of becoming industrious and inquisitive? 

The foundation of critical thinking is likely found in early childhood experiences that foster curiosity, initiative, independence and effective choice, according to research conducted by the LEGO® Learning Institute.

Further research from the LEGO Learning Institute describes “skill, will and thrill” as the recipe for creating life-long learners. Simply, students must of course learn basic knowledge – such as the alphabet and counting – but it can’t stop there.

They must have the will to continue learning, and understand the HOW.  How does what I’m learning today apply to my world? And of course, let’s not forget the thrill. Who hasn’t experienced being more engaged when you’re in a fun, inspiring environment?

For example, Pre-Kindergarten teacher Sharon Dudley of Laurel, Maryland in the United States, says that since implementing LEGO® Education DUPLO® solutions, she has seen a huge boost in the students’ skills, especially in verbal expression.

According to Sharon: “While children are playing, their receptive and expressive language improves dramatically.”

She has found that when learning with DUPLO bricks, children who would normally respond to questions with only a yes or no answer have spoken full sentences such as, “Look! I made this bridge. The troll lives under here. The billy goats are gonna come across!”

In the kindergarten classes at A.J. Whittenberg Elementary in Greenville, South Carolina, DUPLO bricks are helping students learn about problem-solving and engineering. According to Tom Roe, curriculum director for A.J. Whittenberg, allowing the students to use the DUPLO bricks to actively learn about engineering is very important for learners of their age. Using teamwork to build a solid foundation for problem-solving gets children very excited and leaves them feeling very successful at the end of a challenge. 

To find out more about the LEGO Learning Institute and the research being carried out, visit http://learninginstitute.lego.com/

For more about LEGO Education Duplo resources, visit our website.

New playground set makes learning fun

Emma Vanstone of mummymummymum.com has this week reviewed our new LEGO® DUPLO® Playground Set. As she has 3 children of different ages, it really shows how youngsters at various stages of development can get the most out of the product. Here is what she has to say:

“This set comes with 104 pieces, as well as two activity cards and a teacher book full of activity ideas.

“To start with we built everything up. My 4-year-old managed to build everything easily while my 2-year-old needed a bit of help. The hopscotch was great fun to put together and fantastic for number recognition.

“One of the cards shows a scene in a playground with two children at the top of the slide and another at the bottom building a sandcastle. We recreated the scene and then talked about what might happen and what we could do to change it.

“This set was great for role play, H especially has spent a long time moving the people around, making them go down the slide or in the cars and talking to them.”

Emma concludes: “The teacher activity book has some great ideas for how to guide play with this set, I think it is a wonderful addition to any DUPLO collection or perfect as a first set to own.”

To read the full review go to
http://www.mummymummymum.com/2013/02/18/lego-education-playground-set/

To find out about this set and to see all the other DUPLO resources, visit our website.

Bright ideas for inspiring lessons

If you’re searching for captivating lessons this half term, why not take a look at LEGO® Education? We’ve got some cracking ideas to get you started. Here are just a few.

If you’re an Early Years teacher, then our Instant Success booklet is for you. It’s packed with ideas to help you grab the attention of your class and get the most from your LEGO® DUPLO® sets. Find out how to download the free booklet here.

Take on the LEGO® Challenge and ask your pupils to build a stadium using LEGO® bricks that not only looks good, but also doesn’t blow their budget! Find out more here.

Your class can team up with NASA scientists in space as they do experiments in microgravity using LEGO bricks. There’s a whole series of lessons to choose from. Take a look at the session on satellites here.

For an unusual take on self portraits, why not ask your class to draw themselves as a LEGO minifigure? That’s what students in the Sixth Grade (UK Year Seven) at Sandburg Middle School in the US did. The idea was the brainchild of art teacher Jennifer Leban. Find out more here.

Take a look at our activity card on Tower Cranes which will help your students investigate how cranes are built and how their function is influenced by changes to the pulley system. It’s one of many activity cards available on the LEGO Education website. You can find out more about the activity here.

Why not take a look at our series of free science lesson plans using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education? You can develop pupils’ understanding of how a plant tracks the sun’s movement across the sky using the lesson about plant growth. Download it here.

Claire Prud’homme, Director of Learning for Psychology at Smestow School in Wolverhampton, taught Ethics to her A-level students, using LEGO. She encouraged students to build their ideas of what it meant to be ethical and unethical using LEGO Education’s BuildToExpress sets. You can find out how they got on here.

Don’t forget that there are lots more ideas and free, downloadable resources on the LEGO Education website. Happy planning!