How to teach math to children with Lego blocks in a fun way

Few are children (and adults) who have not played or play with Lego. I'm one of them. Sometimes I don't know if I give my son constructions because he likes them (and a lot) or to spend time together riding spaceships, castles, cars ... I even dared with the 7,000-piece Star Wars Millennium Falcon ship!

And as we are not the only ones who "vitiate" with these pieces of all colors and sizes, the Lego world does not stop growing and finding new applications.

And one of them is especially practical now that we start a new school year: A Primary teacher uses Lego pieces to explain fractions, squared numbers and other math concepts. We show you how.

Utilities beyond the game

If you have used them, you have surely discovered that these building blocks have an intrinsic educational value, because at the same time they play, it helps them with their spatial organization, creativity and ability to concentrate.

In fact, they are used in programming and robotics. You may even remember the case of the 18-year-old who used Lego blocks to build an arm.

Some studies also suggest that children who play with Lego will be more successful in the future.

But there is more. Alycia Zimmerman is a 3rd grade teacher in New York who has found a new utility in Lego games.

In Babies and more Five reasons why children have problems with math and five solutions

Alycia confesses in Scholastic, which was not one of those girls who played with Lego during her childhood, although she became familiar with these blocks since she was very young, thanks to her brothers. So now as a teacher, she has discovered her potential to teach her classes.

And use these plastic blocks to explain mathematical concepts, from simple addition or subtraction to even more complex concepts such as fractions and squares because, as he explains, "Fractions are assimilated much better when students can work with tangible objects."

If you want to improve your child's STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) abilities from an early age, you're sure to be interested in different examples of the method published in our Instagram account.

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Can you learn by playing?

It is not a new idea to teach math with bars of different sizes, and it is already done in some schools. But this American professor points out that Lego blocks allow her a greater number of possibilities.

Know what "If you give a student a bag of LEGO pieces the first thing he will do is start playing, building towers or exchanging pieces."

So what he does is give them a little time to "explore the different mathematical possibilities" They have the blocks they have been given. They will play, but learning.

For young children, composing and breaking down numbers is key to understanding arithmetic operations. Students start with references to small numbers, such as five (the fingers of one hand) or six (the faces of a dice) and reach up to ten.

Lego, as with other games that include numbers, such as dominoes or dice, makes it easy for students to count, in this case the nails. The blocks are usually grouped in pairs, which facilitates counting two by two instead of counting individually.

Among the possibilities that students have: group combinations of two or more bricks and find the total number, or start with a larger brick, cover part of it with smaller bricks and calculate how many are missing to cover them completely.

Video: Basic Math for Kids With Legos: Addition, Subtraction, Fun Math Games (March 2024).