Building Cooperation in Lego Club

Several of the Casa children have been busily working away on building projects in our after-school Lego Club. We started Lego Club this year as it is a great opportunity to put a range of different skills into practice. Lego Club allows the children to develop their receptive and expressive language skills, turn taking, negotiating, sharing and collaborative problem solving. It also encourages children to be creative, independent and persistent. 

There is a very specific structure to Lego building sessions and the children each have different roles and responsibilities in their Lego building teams. Each child is assigned one of three roles: Engineer, Supplier or Builder. The Engineer oversees communicating the instructions, the Engineer must inform the Supplier what pieces they need and tell the Builder how to build the Lego model, and the Supplier’s job is to find the correct Lego pieces. The Supplier must listen to the Engineer to find the right piece and pass these pieces to the Builder. The Builder manages building the Lego model and is required to use their excellent listening skills. The Builder is usually the favourite role and oftentimes we have more than one Builder, which engenders collaboration.  

At the very end of their building sessions, the children show their finished piece to the rest of the group and then we spend some time on free play, where they get the opportunity to build whatever they wish. Some children like to make something from their imagination while others enjoy following visual plans. We also sometimes engage in alternative activities. For example, last week the children had the opportunity to design their own Lego figures, which made for some interesting characters with imaginative names. 

We hope to resume this club next term and continue building our skills!