ADVANCED STRATEGIES LAB Welcome to SBCE’s Advanced Strategies Lab, everyone! My name is Mrs. Rice. I am SO excited about this amazing new learning opportunity for our students this year!

No way! Don’t you remember what Ms. Rice said? Advanced Strategies Lab is NOT Playing with Legos! Its using Legos to create, build, design and invent! And we get to play critical thinking games to learn to strategize and problem solve! Were going learn some COOL stuff in the LAB!! I can’t wait to go to Advanced Strategies Labs and play Legos!

Mindware and Thinkfun are award winning, engaging educational games and learning tools that encourage students to use critical and higher order thinking skills to strategize and problem solve!

The Early Machine Set of Legos is used by Kindergarten and First Grade to solve problems using simple machines. The larger Duplo bricks allow the children to manipulate the bricks to create and build while developing their fine motor skills. With this set, students build, test and make predictions about how their machines will perform.

The second and third grade Simple Machines Lego Set is designed to introduce students further to gears, pulleys, levers, wheels and axles. The accompanying Activity Pack enables students to work as young scientists and engineers allowing them to investigate and understand how and why simple machines work. In addition, the continue to develop their problem solving skills and strategies, communication of ideas and teamwork. The activities lead students to make initial use of scientific method through observation, reasoning, prediction and critical thinking.

The materials in the WeDo Construction Set is used in pairs in grades 4-5. The pack enables students to work as young scientists, engineers, mathematicians and creative writers providing them with the settings, tools and tasks for completing cross-curricular projects. Using these materials, students are encouraged to build and program a working model and then use the model for different purposes, depending on the theme of the activity and its focused subject matter in science, technology, mathematics or language. The WeDo Activity Pack enables us to provide learning opportunities for developing these broader learning goals. Think creatively to make a working model Develop vocabulary and communication skills to explain how the model works Establish links between cause and effect Reflect on how to find answers and imagine new possibilities Brainstorm ideas and seek to bring them to fruition Test by changing one factor and observing/measuring effect Make observations and measurements Display, evaluate and communicate data using tables Follow 2D drawings to build a 3D model Think logically and design a program to produce specific behavior Write and present creative stories using models for visual and dramatic effects.

Did you know? – The LEGO® name is made from the first two letters of the Danish words LEG GODT, meaning “play well”. – The LEGO Group patented the LEGO brick with the familiar tubes inside and studs on top on 28 January All 2 x 4 LEGO bricks manufactured since have been produced to the exact same measurements as this patent. – LEGO DUPLO bricks are eight times the size of original LEGO bricks – yet they both connect together. – On average, every person on the earth owns 86 LEGO bricks!

Did you know? – In 2012, 45.7 billion LEGO bricks were produced at a rate of 5.2 million per hour. – The LEGO Group is one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers. – Laid end to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold in 2012 would stretch round the world more than 18 times. – To reach the moon you would need to build a column of around 40 billion LEGO bricks.

Did you know? – The first minifigure was produced in Since then more than 4 billion have been made – making it the world’s largest population group! – Each minifigure is exactly four bricks high without a hat.

Our Orientation Activity: Students were put with a PARTNER. Each partner group was given a baggie with 5 yellow bricks and one red plate. Students told to wait for further instructions.

Students were then asked, “What is this?” (A duck) “Yes, you and your partner will have exactly three minutes to build a duck. You must use all 5 bricks and the plate.”

After three minutes the students hold up their ducks and make the observation that just like these ducks, all of their ducks were different. There were many ways to make a duck. There is no right or wrong way! In this class, we will explore lots of different ways to create, design and build things. As people, we are also all different in many ways and that’s what makes us unique.

Students were encouraged to use Lego bricks not only to create and build but to also to assist them in understanding fractions, decimals and percentages!

Using my son’s story of dreaming of attending Georgia Tech and becoming an engineer as an example of how dreams fueled by education and determination can become reality, students were told that by expanding their minds their dreams can take them anywhere regardless of who they are. The sky is the limit (unless you want to be an astronaut!)