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.

 

What’s new in the world of LEGO® Education?

This week we’ve been celebrating the success of a robotics team from Bath who scooped the top award at the FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival in the United States.

Untitled 1, a team of seven students aged between 11 and 15, beat more than 21,000 teams around the world and won the Champion’s Award at the festival – the first team from the UK ever to do so. You can read more about this amazing team and their LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education robot called The Beast, here.

This week we also brought you a free Maths lesson plan for pupils in Year 3 working with odd and even numbers and equations, using LEGO Education WeDo. Find out more about the activity here. You can also find out more about a Maths activity called Diameter Difference using the WeDo dancing birds here.

Don’t forget that there is lots to watch on the  LEGO Education UK YouTube channel, including a film of the new LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 Robot Arm in action. You can also see a film highlighting some of the features of the EV3 platform, alongside one of the EV3′s lead designers Lee Magpili,  talking about Gyro Boy and EVan – both created using LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3.

We recently reported on a unique social networking experiment in which students around the world worked together to solve engineering projects.The online learning program, called Dr. E’s Challenges was the brainchild of engineering experts from the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO)  at Tufts University in the US. The aim was to encourage more students to become involved in engineering before the age of 18. Find out more about the challenges here.

Picture: Langton Lions

Finally we want to wish good luck to Langton Lions, a team of schoolboys from Kent. They’ll be representing the UK at the FIRST LEGO League Open European Championships in Germany next week. Find out more about them here and we’ll bring you the results of the competition at the end of next week!

 

Free Maths activity: even and odd numbers and equations

In this lesson, students in Year 3 will determine whether a group of objects (up to 20) has an odd or even number of members; e.g. by pairing objects or counting them by twos. They will then write an equation to express an even number as a sum of two equal addends.

The children complete this activity using a LEGO® Education WeDo Construction Set. First they have to check they have all the pieces in their set, then they have to sort them in a variety of ways, using vocabulary such as beams, bricks, even, odd, pairs, plates and rectangular. 

They then have to answer a variety of questions and write equations using the information they have gathered.

This 45-minute-long lesson plan is aimed at students in Grade 2 in the US and Year 3 in the UK. You can download the lesson plan and worksheets by clicking on the images at the bottom of this page.

LEGO Education WeDo resources can help meet the following curriculum points in Maths in Key Stage 2:

Ma2 Number and Algebra – Using & Applying Number
1. Problem Solving
a) make connections in mathematics and appreciate the need to use numerical skills and knowledge when solving problems in other parts of the mathematics curriculum.
e) make mental estimates of the answers to calculations; check results.
1. Communicating
f) organise work and refine ways of recording.
h) present and interpret solutions in the context of the problem.

Ma1 Using & Applying Number – Numbers & the Number System
2. Fractions, Percentages & Ratio
h) Solve simple problems involving ratio and direct proportion.

Ma3 Shape, Space and Measures
4. Understanding Measures
b) recognise that measurement is approximate; choose and use suitable measuring instruments for a task; interpret numbers and read scales with increasing accuracy; record measurements using decimal notation.

Ma4: Using & Applying Handling Data
1. Problem Solving
a) select and use handling data skills when solving problems in other areas of the curriculum, in particular science.
1. Communicating
f) decide how best to organise and present findings.
2. Processing, Representing & Interpreting Data
c) represent and interpret discrete data using graphs and diagrams, including pictograms, bar charts and line graphs, then interpret a wider range of graphs and diagrams, using ICT where appropriate.

 

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!

Free Maths activity: Base 10

In this lesson, students in Years 3 to 6 will learn that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones. They will also understand that 100 can be thought of as a bundle of 10 tens.

They will also read and write numbers to 1,000 using base 10 numerals, number names and expanded form and compare 2 three-digit numbers based on meanings of the hundreds, tens, and ones digits, using >, = and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

The children are asked to build a Goal Kicker using a LEGO® Education WeDo Construction Set and to mark out distances from 0 to 9 in front of it.

They will then use LEGO Education WeDo Software v.1.2 and Activity Pack to program the Goal Kicker to randomly kick balls, using the numbers generated to fill in a worksheet and complete further tasks.

This lesson plan is aimed at students in Grades 2 to 5 in the US and Years 3 to 6 in the UK. You can download the lesson plan and worksheet by clicking on the images at the bottom of this page.

The LEGO Education WeDo resources can help meet the following curriculum points in Maths in Key Stage 2:

Ma2 Number and Algebra – Using & Applying Number
1. Problem Solving
a) make connections in mathematics and appreciate the need to use numerical skills and knowledge when solving problems in other parts of the mathematics curriculum.
e) make mental estimates of the answers to calculations; check results.
1. Communicating
f) organise work and refine ways of recording.
h) present and interpret solutions in the context of the problem.

Ma1 Using & Applying Number – Numbers & the Number System
2. Fractions, Percentages & Ratio
h) Solve simple problems involving ratio and direct proportion.

Ma3 Shape, Space and Measures
4. Understanding Measures
b) recognise that measurement is approximate; choose and use suitable measuring instruments for a task; interpret numbers and read scales with increasing accuracy; record measurements using decimal notation.

Ma4: Using & Applying Handling Data
1. Problem Solving
a) select and use handling data skills when solving problems in other areas of the curriculum, in particular science.
1. Communicating
f) decide how best to organise and present findings.
2. Processing, Representing & Interpreting Data
c) represent and interpret discrete data using graphs and diagrams, including pictograms, bar charts and line graphs, then interpret a wider range of graphs and diagrams, using ICT where appropriate.

LEGO® Bricks in Space: Airplane Rescue

In the latest LEGO® Bricks in Space lesson, students will investigate how a model airplane will react in microgravity and on Earth.

They will create a programmable model airplane with a tilt sensor, to demonstrate their knowledge and operation of digital and technological systems.

In the accompanying video, astronaut Suni Williams from Expedition 32 demonstrates how the model reacts in microgravity, and explains the importance of robotics on board the International Space Station.

Students will then be asked to write a program using a different sensor in the airplane, and to think of other ways the tilt sensor could be used.

View the video above and download teacher notes, student worksheets and building instructions from LEGOspace.com

The collaboration between LEGO and NASA brings great excitement to children big and small, interested in aeronautics and space travel. Find out more at www.LEGOspace.com

Check out our bright ideas for Science Week !

National Science & Engineering Week starts this Friday (March 15) and if you’re looking for lesson ideas, we’re here to help!

Space always grabs the attention of young students, so why not watch real astronauts aboard the International Space Station doing experiments in micro-gravity using LEGO® bricks? There’s a whole series of lesson plans created by LEGO® Education in conjunction with NASA,  including Satellites, Pulleys, Windmill and Smart Spinner.

Older students will enjoy using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education to investigate topics such as Friction, Hazardous Environments, Plant Growth and Learned Responses, with our series of free lesson plans.

And don’t forget there is a host of other science lesson ideas and resources on our website for you to use, so take a look at them now.

You can find out more about National Science & Engineering Week organised by the British Science Association by visiting the website.

Let us know about your Science Week activities using LEGO Education resources. We’d love to hear from you!

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!