We love playing with LEGO at our house. My son asks for new LEGO sets for every birthday and Christmas and then builds and rebuilds his creations during quiet time. I have recently harnessed his enthusiasm by using LEGO bricks to teach him everything from math to reading to science.
Tommy is a very bright five-year-old with math being one of his very strong subjects. However, he was having a difficult time grasping the idea of place value. No matter what I tried to draw for him on paper or explain to him in words, he just couldn't understand what I meant when I said something like, "Eighteen is one ten and eight ones," or, "Twenty-two is two tens and two ones." He just looked at me like I was crazy. It was too abstract. That is, until I pulled out the LEGO bricks and our
place value flip chart and showed him. Suddenly the idea of place value became concrete and he understood it perfectly. Now he can add two-digit numbers together with ease after this one simple lesson.
All you need to do is designate one column as your "10's" and the other
column as your "1's". Choose a number on your flip chart and then
arrange your LEGO bricks to reflect that number. Easy! Take turns
choosing numbers and arranging them with LEGO bricks. Turn it into a
game! Have fun with it.
Saturday Science
And now on to our Saturday Science linky party! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:
I've just found your blog through #Pintorials linky. So many great ideas here! :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome, thanks for stopping by!
DeleteGreat use of Legos! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea!! When I taught we had Algebra Tiles that were somewhat similar, but Legos are even better. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
ReplyDeleteI know, I went to the store to buy some math manipulatives and then I thought, "Why don't we just use Legos? They are basically the same thing and we already own them! Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteLearning with Legos is the best kind! I'm pinning this idea for when my daughter is learning this math concept!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! It worked SO well for us :)
DeleteVery good! Will be trying this with my girls! Thank you for linking up with the #pinitparty
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by! Hope they enjoy this activity, too!
DeleteTeaching places values with legos?! What a great idea!
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
Than you so much for stopping by!
DeleteOh, this looks like so much fun!! Thanks so much for sharing this at our link up! Hope you come back again this week, Rachael @ Diamonds in the Rough
ReplyDeletePinning this one as well :)
Thank you!
DeleteHi there! What a great way to show place value- I love it and will pass it onto the teachers at school (I just teach music nowadays!) Visiting from Monday parenting pin!x
ReplyDeleteThanks for passing it along!
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