Lego Building Ideas and Challenges for Summer

I love a good Lego challenge, where you set kids out to try to build something with Legos. It’s fun to see what they come up with on their own, but of course there are a lot of great instructions out there for building various things with Legos. You can do it either way: give them the instructions and let them build that way, or ask if they can come up with something on their own before you give them the instructions.

One great thing about Lego challenges is that they become engineering projects even if you are following directions. So it’s a super fun learning activity kids might not even register as being educational.

Here are a few Lego builds that caught my eye recently.

Little Bins for Little Hands has a fun Lego zipline challenge. This is one kids can build on their own and then see how different ways of building an enclosure for a mini figure affect how fast the contraption zips.

Or you can learn how to tell time with a sundial by making a Lego sundial with this idea from Mom Brite. If you leave it outside undisturbed you can actually use it to tell time!

Frugal Fun 4 Boys and Girls has so many great Lego ideas it’s hard to narrow it down, but here are a couple of my favorites. Making catapults is a STEM classic, and this post shows two different ways to make a catapult out of Legos.

But the coolest one I found is this Lego air hockey table! This mini table is a fun challenge because while it would be pretty simple to put together you might have to hunt around for the right kinds of bricks to make it work. But I would definitely want to play with this one.

Do you have a favorite Lego building challenge you’ve done with your kids? I’d love to hear about it!

How to Build a Lego Night Light

Disaster Island Lego Building Challenge

Lego All About Me Printable

Lego Mats for Winter

LEGO Snowflake Building Challenge

Make a Chess Board out of Legos

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Review: The Lego Christmas Ornaments Book

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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