Make a Chess Board out of Legos

I’m a sucker for Lego projects. It’s fun to take these blocks to different places beyond the purchased kit or the basic things your kids might come up with to build on their own.

I’m blown away by this Lego chess set from Teach Beside Me. Such a brilliant use of black and white blocks.

Building it is a great STEM challenge (even little kids can do the pattern making involved in making the board), and of course playing chess is a great learning activity because you have to be able to remember the rules for the different pieces, use strategy, take turns, pay attention, etc.

(I don’t actually remember how to play chess, but Chess Kid looks like a good place to start for kids and adults who need a refresher.)

I’m guessing you could make it a checkerboard, too, using the little single round pieces as your checkers.

Do you play chess with your kids? I’d love to know at what age you started and how it went.

[Photo via Teach Beside Me.]

Check out this Brick Subscription box, Building kits delivered to your door each month.

A great gift idea for little Lego building engineers.

Next Plan Idea:

Lego Building Ideas and Challenges for Summer

Kwanzaa is a celebration that I’ve written about a little in the past (see: Kwanzaa Activities for Kids) but I feel like it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves since it happens in the week after Christmas. It’s not a time most kids are in school, but you can talk about it as part of winter holidays around the world, or discuss it at home and talk about how you bring the principles of Kwanzaa to your family.

If you need a refresher on the basics, this coloring sheet from Crayola covers the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Kids Activities Blog has a set of printable fact sheets that talk about when it is celebrated, why it was started and what the celebration means. There are also lots of great videos about Kwanzaa for kids, including this song about the seven principles from Sesame Street and a Kwanzaa facts video by Twinkl.

Around the Kampfire has links to other videos and more ideas for talking about Kwanzaa in the classroom. They teach about Kwanzaa in a holidays around the world unit, which you can purchase from them if you need it. Mrs. Richardson’s Class also has a mini unit about Kwanzaa that you can buy that includes vocabulary cards, fact organizers, pocket sorting and a compare and contrast between Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

Crafting a Fun Life has a couple of great projects for your Kwanzaa study, including making a kinara (candle holder) craft out of simple shapes and a collage. She made hers using Kwanzaa stickers and paint, or you can print out Kwanzaa clip art from places like Free Images to use in your project. That’s where the kinara photo above came from.

Need more coloring pages to help your kids learn about Kwanzaa? This set of 17 pages from Academic Intelligence on Teachers Pay Teachers includes individual pages for the seven principles, as well as other images. Another good one on TPT is this Kwanzaa PowerPoint presentation from Shelia Melton, which is great for K-5 students. It goes into good detail about what the seven days mean and how Kwanzaa is celebrated.

I also like these activity sheets from Malisa Goes Digital on Etsy. They include fact cards that you can read and use as a memory game, cutting practice and two-piece matching puzzles.

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