Good morning readers! We had another great LEGO Education group again this month! This time we worked on building and using cranes!

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This month we created LEGO Ants which were probably one of the more enjoyable creations! Well, the most entertaining anyway!

We had battles…and races…and fun!

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I’ve had several questions about the LEGO Education Simple & Motorized Mechanisms, and I do have to say that we LOVE IT! The lessons are great, and it could definitely suffice as a portion of your science or robotics class for the year. There are about 34 lessons in the Activity Pack, so you could do one per week to make it last for the whole year if you wanted to use it as a formal curriculum.

We’ve been using the kit for about 2 years now because we meet once a month for our co-op. But you could certainly do it more often if you wanted to!

You do need to purchase the activity pack (lessons) separately from the base set if you want the curriculum to go with your base kit.

They recommend 1 kit per two students since the lessons are done as a team.  One student builds their half of the project from book A, and the other builds their half from book B. Then they put their parts together to form the final model.

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The activity pack comes with critical thinking questions and helpful suggestions or thought-provoking ways to improve the models. And we usually complete a lesson, then let the kids have fun altering their projects to make them better.

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Here is a fun little video showing our LEGO Ants in action!

And here they are in all of their glory—our LEGO Ant army.

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For more information on the Simple and Motorized Mechanisms curriculum visit the LEGO Education website!

Disclosure: LEGO Education provided our group with the Simple and Motorized Mechanisms base set for review purposes. Any views or opinions expressed in these posts are mine and not LEGO Education. LEGO Education does not endorse the opinions of any individual or institution, other than those expressed by a LEGO Education staff member acting in an official capacity.

10 Comments

  1. Hi! These look so fun! What age do you recommend these for? My son is 5, but loves Legos and can build Lego sets for older kids almost completely independently. But I am wondering if the same would be true for these? Thanks!

    Christy
    1. Hi Christy,
      They are really cool. I would say as long as he can follow normal LEGO building books he’ll be fine. My 5 yr old needed some help, but she hadn’t built a lot of kits at that time. She does great now.

      erica
  2. Hi Erica. Is this your entire science curriculum or do you also use a homeschool science textbook? Which set did you start with in the beginning? My son is 7.5, and loves Legos! But I’m afraid he would become so obsessed he would want to build every project in a week! Do you allow your kiddos to “play” with it and build more then just what they do at the co-op class? Thanks! By the way, I LOVE COAH forum!!! I have received such amazing support, encourgment, and have developed friendship with some amazing moms:)

    Teri
    1. Hi Terri,
      No, we are also using Abeka for our daily Science this year. We are just using the LEGO kit for our co-op group which meets once a month. If your son is good at following LEGO building instructions for other kits he’ll probably do fine with the Simple and Motorized Mechanisms kit like we’re using.

      We allow them to play with the kits after they’re done doing the assignment at co-op, but it’s kept at one families home and they don’t play with it between meetings because we wanted to keep all the pieces in the correct spots so that it’s easier when we get together. If you’re using it just with your own kiddos, I would let them play with it for sure and build their own creations!

      erica
      1. is this Product # 9686? Machines and Mechanism? I’m trying to decide for our small group club at our private school in Las Vegas.
        Thank you for responding. This looks great! I admire parents who Homeschool.

        Patty Christensen

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