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Lego Advent Calendars – I already Hate You!

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It’s only day two of the Lego Advent Calendar and I am already in ‘Hate’ with them.

Let me explain myself.

  • First, there was the drama of actually getting them. I was lucky I bought mine back in October when I read a post about the best toys for 2015. I think I obtained the last Star Wars one in my store and managed to grab a discounted 2014 Friends calendar from Mr Toys. I was actually hoping to buy non Star Wars themed Lego Calendars for both my kids but instead we ended up with this combination. I guess the Lego Friend girls can share their hot chocolate with the Stormtroopers and the kitty cat can take a spin on the Death Star.
  • Secondly, there is the Star Wars specific issue. What the heck is Day 1 of the Star Wars Calendar meant to be?
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    I don’t know what it is, my child doesn’t know what it is and none of my Facebook friends do either. (This equates to everyone I know)
  • Now we come to day two. Not only was it hard to put together for my 6 year old (who normally has no issues with Lego), it was hard for me too. (I always have issues with Lego though).
  • Next – What the heck is this? My son told me it was a hole cover or a Droid? Clearly he is guessing.

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Please explain to me why I paid $49 for Lego Advent Calendars that comes with a single image construction manual (for each day). Why is there no explanation to what I am actually making. If I wanted to “guess” what my money was creating I would have just stuck 6 overpriced pieces of Lego into snap lock bags and called them DIY Lego creation calendar (Guess what I will be making for the kids next year).

Sorry Lego but there is a lot riding on tomorrows window.

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Comments

  1. OMG….I TOTALLY AGREE!! I also got the Lego Star Wars Advent because, yeah, Star Wars! But what the heck, I also don’t understand…..to the point that it’s almost not even exciting to open each window. Total disappointment. My boys are both waiting for R2 and wishing every day he’ll be in the window. Grrrrrrr.

  6. I didn’t like one year with the friend set, they had just a purse one day and one another day. So I stared building my own. This year my kids are building one big set each. No more little sets.

  8. The first one is Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge from episode 6. The second is the Sarlacc, also from Return of the Jewish.

Have you read?

Learning Activities with Snap Cubes

A classic manipulative in the preschool and early elementary classroom is the snap cube, also known as math cubes, unifix cubes or unit cubes. These little one inch cubes often come in a set of 100 in 10 different colors, and they snap together so they’re easy to use for all sorts of math learning, measuring and more. 

No Time for Flashcards has a cute robot printable to use with cubes to measure the height of each robot. That one is free but they also have other printable cube mats that are a paid resource. 

Catherine & Co uses math cubes to teach kids about measuring volume. They make a letter from cubes and then measure the volume (there’s a printable worksheet in the post). 

Pattern recognition is another fun and easy activity you can do with the cubes. You can use printables like these from Planning Playtime, or just make a pattern from cubes and have kids repeat it or figure out what comes next. There’s another good set of pattern printables at English Created Resources. 

Because there are 10 sets of 10 cubes in a pack, these are great for teaching one to one correspondence, counting, sorting and basic addition and subtraction. English Created Resources has great printable number mats you can use to form the number from cubes and count out the number of cubes that corresponds to that number.

ParenTutor has a great collection of snap cube activity ideas, most of which are just pictures, but it’s work taking a look through the post for ideas for using them at home or in the classroom. 

To give just a few of their examples, you can match linked blocks to the corresponding number of pieces, use blocks to find different ways to add up to 10, compare numbers and determine which one is more or less, skip counting and weighing different numbers of blocks. 

You can also use unit cubes to learn letters, like with these super cute alphabet mats from Fun Learning for Kids. Kids can trace the letter, make it out of cubes and practice writing a word that starts with that letter.

Of course you can also use them to build things, since they are blocks, and there are tons of pattern mats on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also love these dinosaur themed mats from Lets Go to Learn on Etsy. 

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