LEGO Education® Simple Machines and a LEGO Balloon Car
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 5:00AM
One of the best additions to our LEGO resources has been the Simple Machines set from Lego Education®.
Not only has my son enjoyed free building with this set, but he has also sat down with the many instructions and has begun to build and experiment on his own.
With regular LEGOS, my son builds, we take pictures, display the finished products, and he always has fun.
With the products from LEGO Education®, however, we can delve DEEPER into learning about science, technology, education and math (STEM).
The Simple Machines set has been such a valuable resource in our home!
I did not know (until just a few months ago) that LEGO Education® makes products SPECIFICALLY for homeschoolers.
We have had the pleasure of using the StoryStarter set and also the Simple and Motorized Mechanisms set. You can see read about those on my LEGO Learning page.
This Simple Machines set with printable activity guide is another product LEGO Education® makes just for us!
STEM with LEGO Education®
The collage above takes you through one of the first lessons in the activity pack. My son built (using the instructions) a Merry-Go-Round. He learned about gears and gear ratios. He also learned lots of other great vocabulary words and concepts.
In this particular model, the gear ration is 3:1. One of the gears had 24 teeth. The other had 8. It took 3 turns of the crank to make the minifig go around one time. Then, my son modified the model just a bit to change it to a 40 tooth gear and a 24 tooth gear. The ration changed to 5:3.
I was able to talk him through all of this. The lessons are completely scripted, with a guide printed for me. A CD with printable worksheets even goes along with this set.
This would be perfect for individual homeschool use or a co-op setting, too.
Score.
This set will be an integral part of our homeschool science in the coming year.
*If you want to find out more about this set, visit LEGO Education®'s site to see all of the specifics. I think you will be VERY impressed.
Making a LEGO Balloon Car with Simple Machines
We had seen many balloon car challenges online. I presented the task to my son last week.
I showed him a picture of a balloon car. We watched a few videos.
I told him he could just use his Simple Machines set.
I told him to think about a few things:
- The car must be vertically and horizontally stable.
- The balloon needs to have enough space to inflate.
- The wheels should be protected so the balloon doesn't hit them.
This little task is harder than it looks! I believe it took well over an hour to achieve success.
It's funny, though, because he never got discouraged. It was a compulsion to make the car GO. Playing with LEGO bricks can be like that. Sometimes it's just hard to be FINISHED!
Grant was so pleased with himself (I didn't help at all!) and asked me to make a video.
As a parent I can't ask for anything more than focused learned, experimentation, and a passion to know MORE.
LEGO Education® has helped me nurture all of these in my child.
Here is the amazing news! I am giving away one of the complete Homeschool Simple Machines Pack with Printed Teacher's Guide to one lucky reader.
This is a $109.95 value!
Follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below to enter.
I am a member of the LEGO Education® blogger program. I was given this product in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received.
Reader Comments (165)
We have used legos with math. I also love to see my kids creativity.
This looks wonderful!
I will love to win a set for my kiddos for summer education!
I am looking for ways to incorporate legos into our learning!
my son loves using lego for math and shapes. He is three and loves learning with them.
My kids love Legos and I have recently starting using them for lessons. They are great for teaching square roots and fractions. Love your blog!
OH, my son would absolutely LOVE this!
We use Lego's in many ways. We use them for math (counting), we use them to build structures for history or literature lessons. We also use them for imagination and creativity! We use Lego's weekly in our house for schooling, yet it doesn't really seem like school. It is just a lot of fun! :)
we use legos for math mostly but id like to use it for more.
We use lego's in all sorts of ways - building, history (characters), counting, matching, etc...
We haven't incorporated them yet, but I would love to start!
This is great! I love the ideas to incorporate with my Lego loving boys! Thank you sharing this and your many other wonderful ideas that make your blog so awesome! :)
so far we have used legos for math counting, adding, and subtracting, and for colors/shapes
My boys are still young so we use Legos for simple math games (how many bricks to fill an area, how tall are you in Legos, etc).
My son would go ape over this! He is in our local 4H club for Lego, and lives and breathes it! :) His favorite subject in school is science. Lego provides such a great way to integrate learning with building fun!
We use Legos all the time learning about things like math (area, volume, dimensions, etc) and a ton of other creative ways. Thanks for the entry!
We use Legos for history by building items from whatever time period we are studying.
We've looked at these before! With a lego lover in the house I've always been tempted but never taken the plunge. Thanks for the giveaway :)
We do Legos at our house all the time. This fall we are starting a First Lego League Robotics Team made up entirely of homeshoolers.
Use legos quite a bit to play and do lessons.
I would love to win this - Legos seem to be one of the few things my son gets excited about and we use them for math and science a lot.
I don't use them yet but really want to next year. My son is 5 and loves legos!
We use Lego bricks fir almost all subjects. We have made historical landmarks, demonstrated science concepts,, learned colors and fractions, and performed historical reenactments.
I usually have the boys build whatever we're learning about in history. We love legos and would love to win!!
Wow! My DS would LOVE this! Can't believe I've never heard of it before.