Every once in a while you stumble on an activity that unites your kids more and does more for their sense of "team" than anything else you deliberately planned. A LEGO rainbow seems pretty simple, but the way everyone came together to make it happen was astounding.
Building with LEGO has been one of the things that I will remember this summer for. Almost every day our kids (ages preschool, 1st grade, and 4th grade) have spent more than an hour playing and building with LEGO. Sometimes they work with each other and sometimes they work alone. Because they love LEGO so much we have been using it for a lot of things...from math to reading! Recently I was sitting on the floor with them (mostly to be sure no LEGO pieces worked their way into little mouths!), when I started building a rainbow.
Gradually everyone stopped what they were doing and came to help. Different kids had different suggestions about how to make the rainbow work. They helped find the right colors and the right sized bricks. (Honestly, we just used basic bricks. We have at least three different brands of LEGO-style bricks mixed together in our bins, so getting a set all the same color took a little work!) One kid thought we needed a pot of gold at one end and made it. Another child thought we needed a cloud, and made that. Another child thought it should stand up...I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me before she said so!
In the end we had a huge and fantastic LEGO rainbow! I even thought it was amazing! The kids loved it and displayed it as long as possible.
Our crew embraced the challenge of creating a rainbow very spontaneously, but you could totally initiate it with any group. Challenge them to build a rainbow! Provide a ton of LEGO bricks. Don't give them any more restrictions or requirements. See what they come up with! Sidenote: I would totally do this in a classroom, but I would divide them into groups of four. Four children can work together and still have something for each child to do. Less than four works all right too, but I would not put them in groups bigger than four.
When you're done, talk about what happened. What did each person contribute. Make sure everyone knows that their contribution was important and acknowledged. Then put that LEGO Rainbow on display!
Do you love LEGO? Why not try this LEGO spelling activity, this LEGO Penguin counting game, or this LEGO STEM Challenge?
Happy Educating,
Carla
I may share at any of these parties!
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