LEGO Week

For homeschool, occasionally we have theme week. We pick a theme to study more in-depth, apply to our different school subjects, or just focus more on during the week. 

Our favorite and most successful theme week thus far was LEGO Week.

We combined a number of fantastic LEGO learning activities I found on the internet to create a fun, educational week. A big thank you to all the talented and generous bloggers who share their ideas and hard work, especially Homegrown Learners and Walking by the Way.

To begin each day of our LEGO theme week, the kids' had a few minutes of "free play" to build something new with our LEGO bricks.

Then they shared their creations with each other trying to use good communication skills, like eye contact, good posture, and speaking slowly and clearly.


One day we watched videos about how LEGO bricks are made, including the one below.

It was interesting to see little plastic granules transform into the plastic bricks and be sorted and transported all by automation and robots. About 35,000 LEGO bricks are produced every minute or about 20 billion each year!

Another day we learned about two LEGO Master Builders, Nathan Sawaya and Sean Kenney, and their amazing work with LEGO bricks. This sculpture by Nathan Sawaya is titled "Yellow".

We realized we saw Sean Kenney's work in person last summer at a special exhibit called "Creatures of Habitat" at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City.

During LEGO week, we also learned LEGO building techniques, like interlocking bricks, to make creations stronger and more stable.

And we did some experiments to test their strength.



On Mini-Figure Day, we reassembled many of our mini-figs for a group picture (just a small sample of the more than 4000 minifigs available by LEGO). 

Then the kids had an opportunity to design and color their own mini-figures (sorry - I forgot to take pictures).

We also played LEGO games, including Bingo and Tower Builder.

Plus, we learned lots of interesting LEGO facts.

• LEGO in Danish means "play well" and in Latin means "put together"
• In 2000, LEGO was named Toy of the Century
• There are enough LEGO bricks to stack from earth to the moon…10 times!
• There are 915 million different ways to combine just 6 LEGO bricks
• LEGO is an adjective not a noun (proper usage is LEGO bricks not LEGOs)

The kids' favorite LEGO activity was creating and designing their own LEGO instructions. They made a simple creation that could be broken down into 5 to 8 simple steps. We took pictures of each step. Then they used a photo editor to display their creation and each step in an easy to follow format. I was so impressed with their projects!

LEGO Week was awesome!

Because LEGO week was such a big hit with our LEGO-loving-boy, Ian, we did more LEGO activities tailored just for him a few weeks later. I found a great LEGO lap book online and he worked on it for a couple of weeks. It was lots of fun and incorporated many different subjects and skills perfect for him.

Ian learned more about the history of LEGO bricks, how and why the bricks stick together, the process of making and packaging LEGO sets, and did some fantastic math activities with his own LEGO bricks. He also had a few building challenges where he created his own version of Olaf (the talking snowman from the movie Frozen),

a dragon boat,

and a cool mosaic.

The possibilities are endless with LEGO. I'm so glad we had an opportunity to include our favorite toy in our educational, learning process. We had such a great time learning, playing, building, and creating. We're on our way to becoming LEGO Master Builders!