Grab those bins of old Lego bricks, and let’s get creative while practicing listening skills with our students.
As an adult with a visual impairment, when I became a mom, I worried about some of the activities that might be difficult for me to do with my child. Building with Legos was definitely on the list. When my son was old enough to start putting Lego sets together, I discovered that using the Lego Builder application made constructing each set much easier. Using the app means that I can access interactive digital instructions where I can zoom in and rotate the image to make sure that I’m putting the pieces in the right places. My son quickly outgrew his interest in Legos, but mine flourished, and now I enjoy it as a hobby!
Lego building is never far from my mind, so when I planned a summer program for elementary aged boys, I decided that I would definitely include it in my lesson plans. The two Lego lessons that I included in our program infused many skills including tactile discrimination, orientation and mobility, and recreation and leisure, but what I chose to focus on was the aspect of building listening skills. In order to do this, I decided that I would not provide any written instructions for the students to build each creation. We did the entire activity orally, using descriptive language to complete each step. The students even got involved and supported each other, adjusting their language with feedback from one another.
Materials
- Lego Fidget Spinner Instructions and/or Simple Catapult Instructions (second item in the blog link)
- Lego bricks indicated in the instruction blogs above. I ordered mine from the pick-a-brick section of the Lego Website.
- Food service trays or some other container to keep the pieces from rolling away or falling out of reach.
- Ziplock bags to package the pieces for each student and to hold the finished creation.
Procedure
- Procure your pieces and divide them into ziplock bags so that everything your student will need for one creation is in one bag.
- Give the bag and a tray to your student.
- Introduce the lesson and ask them to sort their pieces out, noting the differences in each piece.
- Describe the procedure for building the creation beginning by identifying the piece needed and the steps for putting them together. This might take some practice. I worked through each creation ahead of time at home so I could come up with a script.
- Work through building your creation(s), and enjoy playing with them after.
Adaptations and extensions
- For older students, allow them to dig for their own pieces in a larger container to emphasize tactile discrimination skills.
- For younger students and those with complex access needs, hand them each piece individually and come up with descriptive words to help them identify differences.
- If you create the catapult, use miniature marshmallows to practice launching them. Move the bin on the catapult and experiment with how far the marshmallows will go.
- Count how many pieces it takes to make each creation.
- Count the bumps on each piece.
- Ask your students to write a how-to paragraph on the steps needed to build their favorite creation.
