Seriously — LEGO Engineering for Kids?
This post may contain affiliate links.
Kids already are natural builders. Give them LEGOS, facilitation, and information and watch as kids become engineers.
Actually, I never thought about engineering for kid until AJ (4th grade) took a Play-Well Engineering FUNdamentals class after school, which she loves. It got me thinking about all the ways to learn about engineering – and, you know I love to research and learn so I’ve gathered some great resources to share with you!
LEGO Engineering
But, let’s start with the Play-Well Engineering FUNdamentals Class. In the class I observed, AJ learned about pneumatics and made a claw. (Admittedly, I didn’t even know the word pneumatics – am I smarter than a 4th grader? Ha.)
I won’t share the secrets of the Play-Well classes but I’ll tell you that the claws were really amazing.
The kids experimented picking up things and then had a relay race.
I loved the learning, the collaboration, the experimenting, and the fun!
You do this kind of LEGO engineering exploration at home or in your own community, too. Here’s how.
Engineering at Home
- Go to LEGO Education and see what education sets you can purchase.
- Radio Shack has many kits which involve building and engineering.
- Funutation classes
- Play-Well also offers birthday parties and other events.
- RoX app teaches strategy in building shapes.
Engineering Books For Kids
Engineering the ABCs by Patty O’Brien Novak
Steven Caney’s Ultimate Building Book
Engineering the City: How Infrastructure WorksÂ
The Curious Adventures of Sydney and Symon in: Water Wonders
Engineering Competitions
Future Cities Competition – 6th, 7th, and 8th graders compete to plan a city.
Math Counts – a national math enrichment program and competition.
Invent It. Build It. – Girl Scouts and Aspire
Engineering Learning Resources
Society of Women Engineers: Aspire – resources for K-12 students.
Engineering Education Service Center – Outreach and hands-on activities in engineering.
A World in Motion – bringing STEM in the classroom.
Alice from Carnegie Mellon – educational software that teaches computer programming in a 3D programming environment
Scratch from MIT – a programming language for everyone to create interactive stories, games, music, and art
FisherTechNik – a construction toy brand that teaches engineering through play.
Aren’t these cool resources?
What do you think about engineering for kids?
What amazing ideas, Melissa! I’m going to check these out. My daughter LOVES building structures with blocks. She can spend hours doing it. She has the inclination toward engineering type of activities. So, these will be of interest to her. Thank you for sharing 🙂
This is wonderful, Melissa! I love all the resources — you’ve done a ton of research and we’re all the luckier for it.
So great! I’m working with the Lego WeDo Robotics kit with my daughter (8), and my son is excited to begin experimenting with Rube Goldberg machines. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to build one starting in our home’s upstairs, going down the stairwell, and finish off in the basement. I’ve never engineered anything in my life. I’m super excited. Thanks for these resources – you have perfect timing!
Nice resources. I was just telling my oldest about a club at her school sending a team to a contest at Legoland soon. She’s pretty jealous. She also isn’t old enough for the particular group, so it’s not like she’s missing out with them yet.
Love this article! Thank you for all these resources! My son has always been more interested in hands-on and fine motor skill type activities. He loves learning how things work and at 2 was asked if he could be taken to a conference to “show off” his abilities by a therapist he was seeing for his autism (yeah, my son is not a circus monkey :oP). But despite all of this I am not the mom who knows where to find more activities to keep him stimulated. So this is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much Melissa! Your site is, as always, a great resource for me and others I’m sure!
Thanks for making my day, Danielle! (And, I think you are that mom BTW.) 🙂