Ready to Play with those famous colorful bricks?
Some fun summer game suggestions with LEGO!
As we plunge into the summer hustle, let’s not forget to play! I recently presented a workshop at a regional nonprofit that advocates for high-quality care and education for children and youth. I did not have a slide deck, but instead a whole bunch of colorful LEGO. For those who follow the Digital Dragon blog, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. However, what I’d like to focus on this month is making time and activities for playful moments between our jam packed summer schedules.
I was so thrilled to run some remixed exercises from our friends at Play Included. Digital Dragon, as some of you might now, also has a Brick-by-Brick certified facilitator. Here are some fast paced, fun, activities created by the Play included team that you can engage with whether it is with random LEGO or other mixed materials.
Color Collectors – On the way out the door for a walk or summer adventure have your little(s) grab a random assortment of LEGO, DUPLO, or whatever has a good variety of color. When you’re out and about, examine the color palette you’ve got and try to find those colors out in the wild! You can document your adventure with your phone. Here are some amazing finds from our session!
What’s Missing – Playable in rounds and in super quick fashion, this simple game uses a random assortment of LEGO and plays up on our memory. Lay out the LEGO or materials, have the other player close their eyes, remove an element, and have them guess. It’s as simple as that and is surprisingly fun. You can take it further and on the road by making the puzzles in advance and taking photos of both the complete selection and with the missing part.
Build Like Me – A throwback to a Digital Dragon classic in 2013, 2 or more players get the same bricks, and the leader builds a model – the other players must be turned away and follow only the verbal instructions from the lead builder. The results are usually mismatched and hilarious spurring the desire to get it right.
We are using these games during our Digital Dragon Summer Camps this year…come play with us!
TLDR; Play is important and these moments of joy are especially handy when dealing with the stress of a busy summer schedule. There are plenty of quick and fun activities that you can play with whatever your little one decided to put in their backpack or pockets. For other kiddos, and adults, you can pack a surprise with more intent and modify the challenge level accordingly. For an extended list of activities, check out https://playincluded.com/en-GB/for-home
About the Author:
John Balash was instrumental in Digital Dragon’s launch in 2013 as its first Curriculum Director and is now back in the fold as a consultant on all the latest and greatest in tech education.This is John’s latest contribution to a monthly blog series we’ve launched, Tech News from the Frontier. John is the Director of Educational Engagement at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. John has worked on educationally-focused initiatives with clients ranging from D.A.R.P.A. to Disney. Working from both sides of the desk, you can find John in classrooms and conferences around the world exploring new uses for technologies in learning environments.