Use LEGOs to Build Landmarks from Around the World

I love using LEGOs and other blocks in educational ways, because it’s a way to build on something that most kids already love and sneak in a bit of learning about another topic. Building is a great STEM lesson because it teaches creative thinking and problem solving, and it’s also just fun.

123 Homeschool 4 Me brings blocks to your social studies or history lessons with a set of LEGO challenge cards involving landmarks of the world. The cards don’t call for any particular blocks, they just show a picture of the landmark and kids can use what they have to try to re-create the design.

The cards included in the set are:

Taj Mahal, India
Windmills, Holland
Brandenburg Gate, Germany
Eiffel Tower, France
Notre Dame, France
Arc de Triumphe, France
Sagrada Familia, Spain
Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy
Colosseum, Italy
Stonehenge, United Kingdom
Big Ben, Great Britain
Blue Domed Church, Greece
Acropolis, Greece
St Basil’s Cathedral, Russia
Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
The Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Statue of Liberty, United States of America
Golden Gate Bridge, USA
Capital Hill, USA
Mount Rushmore, United States
Great Wall of China, China
Sydney Opera House, Australia
Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichen Itza, Mexico

You can use these challenge cards in lots of different ways. Of course you can just tuck them in the block are and see if kids want to play with them. You can also add them to a unit where you are learning about that country or a particular time period where the landmark makes sense to include. Have kids do a little research on the landmark, build their own version and present their findings.

I would love to try some of these challenges, and I’ll bet your kids will, too. You can grab the free printable landmarks LEGO challenge cards from 123 Homeschool 4 Me. I’d love to hear how you use them!

[Photo: 123 Homeschool 4 Me]

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When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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