Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

When you are using LEGO bricks in your classroom, is it a free for all, or do you have systems in place to keep it controlled chaos? In this episode, I am going to be sharing with you the systems and routines that I like to use when using LEGO bricks in a STEM space. I am so excited about this episode, all about LEGO bricks, that this is going to be broken up into 2 parts. In this first part of this 2 part series, I am going to be talking about the systems to put in place, whether you are using LEGO education kits or mixed buckets of bricks in your classroom. In the second episode of this 2 part series, we are going to be then talking about the behavior management strategies and also the different types of lessons and kits that you can use.

Naomi Meredith [00:01:31]:

I have to admit something. When I was looking through all of my episodes and working on this series, I realized I don't have a dedicated LEGO brick lesson. We are over 150 episodes in, and I haven't done a whole episode about LEGO. And I am so sorry about that. In my opinion, teaching with LEGO bricks is one of the easiest things to teach STEM, especially if you have LEGO Education Kits. They're pretty self-explanatory in terms of all the other STEM kits or things you might use, and I think that might be why I didn't record an episode yet or I didn't get a whole lot of questions about LEGO bricks yet, but I have gotten some questions. So, I apologize for not recording this sooner, but here we are. It's going to be okay. I had a lot of fun planning this episode for you, looking through my camera roll, and getting ideas.

Naomi Meredith [00:02:38]:

When I taught with LEGO Education Kits, I actually saved them towards the end of the school year and during state testing time. There are a couple of reasons for this. 1st, in my role, when I was a k through 5 STEM teacher, yes, I was a STEM teacher, but I was also our school technology point person and also did some co-teaching off and on during the years. When it was state testing time, I actually got pulled for a big chunk of those weeks to support teachers when it came to technology needs and also makeup testing. For about 2 to 3 weeks, I actually had to have a substitute in my classroom full-time so I could support our administration during this time. So, in turn, I would save my LEGO education lessons during state testing because I knew this was something that a substitute could do, and with my systems and routines, it would actually work really, really well. Side note: my substitute that I had would actually say how organized I was, and I met his wife at an education conference. She is a teacher in our district, and she was saying, oh, yeah.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:00]:

My husband substituted for this STEM teacher. She was super, super organized. He loved being there, and we came to the conclusion. It was actually my classroom. He was talking about me and the wife hadn't ever met before. So it was such a small world, so funny, and good to know that he had a good experience in my classroom because of the systems and routines that I am going to talk to you about. I do know that LEGO education kits can be really expensive, and I'm gonna talk about the different kits that I have used. Some are retired, some are current, and it is a really good investment staple STEM products that I absolutely love because they can be used over and over again.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:49]:

And I will say LEGO Education Kits, for the most part, have great longevity you can get a lot of use out of them. If you don't have the funds or you know you won't ever have the funds and you only have mixed LEGO bricks, that is okay. I'm also going to be talking about that in this episode. Likewise, I am gonna talk about some LEGO Education Kits that use Duplo blocks, those bigger blocks, because I did get to try that out with my kindergarten classes. So, if you do teach pre-k or kindergarten, I have some good options for you, too. I also recently did a short-term contract where I was teaching LEGO Education Kits in after-school programs for our company, and I started to train some people as well in how to use these kits with students with people who had never taught children before. I will say the systems that I used in my k through 5 STEM classroom are the same ones that I used in an after-school program. So maybe that's you.

Naomi Meredith [00:05:56]:

Maybe you have the chance to do LEGO with an after school program. These tips and tricks are gonna work in all these situations. Alright. So, let's get into those systems when you are using LEGO bricks in your classroom. Side note: I keep saying LEGO bricks because, for a short time, I was a LEGO ambassador, and they did say that LEGO, you usually don't say LEGO by itself. You add on something. There was a reason for it. There was a name for it too.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:29]:

And it's actually not LEGOs. It's LEGO like fish is 1 fish or mini fish. LEGO is 1 brick or mini brick. But they did say you have to add something at the end, so it's LEGO bricks. So, I might say LEGO Education Kits are LEGO bricks. If I mess up, I'm so sorry, but there's a reason why I'm saying it like that. So, first of all, you are sharing the actual builds with students. And if you are buying a kit, you will often get the paper versions of the builds.

Naomi Meredith [00:07:02]:

For me, I didn't like the clutter. I didn't like how the books were flimsy paper. So whenever I would get brand new kits in my class, I actually recycled all of them. I know that you can use them offline, but they just really bothered me and the pages would tear, and I just didn't like storing them. What I did instead is I actually grabbed the PDF version of the build, which all of them can be found for free, open access on the LEGO Education website. I would download all of those and make them seesaw activities that I could share with students. If I wanted them to build something specific on one day, I could have it scheduled to go out on certain days, or I had all of them available for students, and they could pick and choose what they wanted to build. What was really cool was when students were finished with their build, they could take a picture or take a video of their work because they couldn't take their builds home, of course, and so they could take it home by taking a picture or taking a video.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:09]:

Also, with some of the builds, there was a paired science activity, which is on their website, and I'm gonna talk more about that in the lesson plans. But that is how I would streamline the builds, and so this is actually part of their roles, which I'm also gonna talk about. But so that you know, that was just something I really like to set up. Some of the LEGO Education Kits actually have an app that goes with them. It depends on the kit that you're purchasing and the building directions are already in the app. So, depending on the kit you have, check it out. It was really helpful. And again, when I had a substitute, I did this for all of my students from first through 5th grade.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:50]:

All of the building directions were in Seesaw. And what I actually did is when kids would sign into Seesaw if we had to use the iPads because they couldn't use their laptops because they were used for testing. I had all of the QR codes to their Seesaw class up on the whiteboard. I had them organized by grade level, so they were there for the week. The substitute knew they were going to be there, and it was all set up. I also had a section in my classroom that was for LEGO spare parts. And for the LEGO Education Kits, certain parts repeat and are used for all of the kits, and a lot of the newer kits actually come with spare parts already. So I had a section that was the spare parts shelf, and all of the spare parts were organized by exactly what piece they were.

Naomi Meredith [00:09:41]:

I did have some students help me out with this at the end of the school year, all of the years, but we had them organized in these little containers that are for crafting items or small beads. And it was really nice because they're see-through on both sides. You can see what piece you need. And if they were found on the ground, kids could quickly organize them. I know it sounds really tedious. I don't do this for my mixed LEGO bricks, but it was really helpful because if they were missing a piece, they could easily find it and then get back to work. I will link the exact little containers that I got in the show notes. They were easy to store.

Naomi Meredith [00:10:20]:

I did have to show kids how to open them. You open the latch-up. I would say, what would happen if you open it the other way? And they're all, oh, no. It would fall. I'm like, exactly. So make sure you open it the right way. None of them actually fell because they remembered my face and what I would tell them when we were introducing the kits. If you do need to buy other parts that aren't found in the extras that LEGO supplies you, or maybe you have an older kit. You need a specific piece, all of the LEGO Education Kits either in the kit or you can look online, every LEGO brick has a specific part number.

Naomi Meredith [00:10:59]:

You can go on to the website Brickowl, and you can actually purchase individual pieces that you are missing in bulk. So they are really cheap. They're, like, a few cents. You wanna try to purchase from 1 seller because you do have to pay for shipping per person you buy from. It is a legit website. It doesn't look super fancy, but it actually is legit because sometimes I had to go in and purchase things for my classroom or my LEGO after-school club, so that's a great resource as well. If you are using a LEGO education kit that uses the big Duplo blocks, the big ones. They come in these ginormous boxes, and when they get delivered to your school, everyone's like, what did you buy? I'm like, they're just a few kits of big LEGO bricks.

Naomi Meredith [00:11:49]:

What I ended up doing to help streamline how kids would use them. For my youngest learners, I had my green fabric cube boxes that I was obsessed with. I use it for so many different things, including mini green screens, so that's why they were green. When we weren't recording on a green screen, I actually had them all against a wall. I had about 20 of them, and I sorted all of the kits by color. Again, this sounds tedious at first, but it was really helpful because, at the end of class, students would take apart their builds and sort them back in the colors, which is actually a great skill for our youngest kids anyway. There also are some pretty pieces like little kitty cats in the kit that I had or little flowers that I sorted into ziplock bags and kept to the side, and they were only allowed to use those when the build required it. I also did that for my kids for my LEGO after-school clubs because kids get distracted by them. And, yes, I am all about creativity and expressing yourself, but kids get distracted, and they actually are the most stolen pieces.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:59]:

So I just keep them to the side. They are pulled out when needed, and then we have to put them back at the end of class. If you only have mixed LEGO bricks in your classroom, they are just all mixed up. They're basic pieces. You can order these off Amazon. They often will come in these big giant buckets that look like a giant LEGO. I would keep them in that giant LEGO because they're actually super cute, and they're pretty sturdy and easy for kids to carry. When kids were putting these big buckets away, I made them slide them on the floor because if they were feeling brave and wanted to carry the bucket by themselves, that usually didn't go well.

Naomi Meredith [00:13:41]:

And I swear I would have somebody spill a bucket of those LEGOs on the floor once a week. So I recommend having a broom and a dustpan, sweep up those LEGO bricks, and dump them in. If there are other things in there, oh, well, it's a way quicker way to clean them up. Likewise, it is a lot easier having the mixed buckets of LEGOs on the floor. And depending on your tables, it might be hard for kids to reach across and share. I had tile floor, I drew with a chalk marker different little LEGO bricks on the floor, and those were spread out around the room. And so those are the places that they had to put those mixed buckets of LEGOs. Toward the end of my last year, I got a small grant from our PTO.

Naomi Meredith [00:14:33]:

I was able to purchase some big baseplates. Those are the big ones that kids can build on. Some baseplates that were sticky and hung them up on my wall to have a LEGO wall. For my preference, I actually made the base plates match the color of the wall. So, I had a green wall and a blue wall that were used for recording. The reason why I matched them is so that if somebody were to use that wall for a green screen or blue screen, it wouldn't take away the space of the wall. It could still be an area they could record in front of, and it actually blended in a lot better. But you can make it whatever style you want.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:13]:

That was just a preference for me. The plates on the wall ended up being a part of a stem station or a free building choice at the end of the year. I didn't use them that often, but they were pretty cool to have. Now that you have all of those systems put in place tune in to the second part of this 2 part series. I'm gonna be talking about the behavior management tips that work really well and also the different types of lessons and kits that you can purchase for your classroom. I know you wanted it all in 1. I did, too, but I really wanna make sure that I am not overwhelming you with ideas and also helping you be set up for success. So I will see you in the next episode where we will be talking about those two things.