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]

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Teach the Teacher Printable Worksheets: A Fun…

I don’t know why tropical animals feel like something you should learn about in the summer, because these tropical bird crafts and activities are great to do any time of year. Let’s take a look.

Homeschool Giveaways has a printable tropical birds copywork book kids can use to practice cursive or print writing. They also have links to more fun printable activities, mostly about parrots, toucans and cockatoos.

Homeschool Share has a printable lapbook all about parrots. This one is a lot of fun because it includes things like the pros and cons of owning a pet parrot and some parrot jokes alongside information about where parrots live, why they have hooked beaks and their lifespan, among other things.

Use colorful bird puzzles to reinforce number order with this free printable puzzle collection from Craft Play Learn. It includes five different bird puzzles that are each eight pieces.

And if you want to look at toucans in particular, check out this toucan study guide aimed at elementary students from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus. This isn’t a free resource but it’s 31 pages all about toucans, their life cycle, anatomy, what they eat, role in the rainforest ecosystem, activities and more well worth the cost.

How about some tropical bird crafts? This 3D macaw parrot from The Craft Train is a great one, also not free but super cute and easy to make with the printables.

I Heart Crafty Things has a super cute parrot made with cardboard and card stock. If you hang it from the ceiling it will even spin.

Or try the cute cardboard tube parrots from Kids Craft Room, which kids will love to decorate (you could even use feathers if you have some). You can also make a parrot (or whatever other tropical bird you like) from a paper plate with these instructions from Crafts on Sea.

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