Review: The Lego Christmas Ornaments Book

If you’ve got a Lego fan in your household, making Christmas ornaments out of Lego is a fun engineering challenge. But if you don’t want to have to figure out how to make different shapes on your own, The Lego Christmas Ornament Book by Chris McVeigh is here to help.

The book includes 15 designs for fun ornaments, including:

poinsettia
snowflake
wreath
present
Christmas tree
gingerbread house
barrel ornament
ball ornament
bow
frill
lantern
arcade video game machine
computer
camera
burger

Each design includes an illustrated supply list and step-by-step instructions. In Lego style they don’t include words. I feel like some of these could be made with standard blocks that you already have in your house, but for others you would probably need to buy special pieces to complete them exactly as shown. But that kind of adds to the challenge, if you use these projects to inspired using what you have to create something similar.

I only looked at the first volume, but there’s a second book in this series as well, which includes 16 new projects:

Santa
reindeer
Mr. Snow
Mrs. Snow
gingerbread man
gingerbread house
confetti tree
crinkle
chime
blizzard
pendant
swirl
twist
crane game
’90s computer
fries

It might be fun to do a whole Lego tree with the kids, or present these challenges with the needed Legos as part of an advent calendar.

About the book: 220 pages, hardcover, 15 projects. Published 2016 by No Starch Press. Suggested retail price $19.99.

Looking for more Lego challenges? Here are some Lego building challenges I labeled as being for spring and summer, but you can do any time. I also have a post on building a Lego nightlight, winter themed Lego mats, a snowflake building challenge and some Christmas-themed mosaics. You can even build a Lego chess set and learn how to play. That will keep the kids busy for a while.

[Photo: No Starch Press]

Next Plan Idea:

Snowflake Themed Math Activities

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]

Next Plan Idea:

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