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

Fall is a great time to learn about and observe the birds in your area, but you can do this any time of year. Whether you’re watching from a backyard or a playground, you’re sure to find a few birds and can learn about the birds that are native to your region in any case.

If you do see birds at home or where your classroom is, the Merlin app is a great one (if your school allows phones). If you don’t already know it, it listens to the sounds around you and can identify birds based on their calls. Very cool and a reason for kids to be quiet while you’re observing nature. Having an old fashioned paper guidebook to the birds where you live is also a great idea because kids can use it to look up birds and it’s just fun to have in the science center.

The specific birds involved in your learning will vary depending on where you live, but here are some bird activities you can do with your kids at home or in the classroom.

Natural Beach Living set up a simple bird nature study center that includes bird books and feathers in front of a big window. There are also some printables you’ll find links to in this post including three part cards and bird observation charts for birds local to them and a bird unit study with lots of great printables (this is a paid resource).

Adventure in a Box has a printable birds of the world bingo game, which might inspire you to learn more about some of the 48 different birds included, from emu to snowy owl, grackle to Atlantic puffin.

If you’re American you’ll enjoy these state bird coloring pages from Flanders Family Home Life. If I can count, only 48 states are listed (which I wouldn’t have noticed except Arkansas isn’t there; it’s one of many whose state bird is the mockingbird). Print out all of them or just your home state, or give each child a bird to research and color to do a presentation in the classroom.

And you can learn more about the different types of bird nests and see if you can observe any of them on a nature walk with this guide to bird nests from Fun Mom Printables on Etsy. It includes information about eight types of nests with drawings and three part cards.

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