For a second year, Kendall Recreation hosted a February break LEGO Workshop at the Kendall Elementary School Tuesday, February 21. The event has proven to be very popular with elementary-age children and is an opportunity for them to have fun learning building and teamwork skills outside of the classroom.
This year’s event was organized by Alicia Charland, Rachel Fisken and Reverend Steve Meyer. The team created twelve activity stations, mostly for LEGOs, but also for building with other materials including plastic cups, play dough and popsicle sticks.
“There is a helper at each station,” Alicia Charland said. “If they see you helping each other, collaborating and working on problem solving, they will give you a star,” she told participants.
Participants collected stars on their name tags as they visited various stations. The stars reward positive behavior such as being a team player, using creativity, working hard, building interesting and strong structures and cleaning up when play is done.
The LEGO zip line was one of the most popular stations. Participants designed LEGO creations which would carry LEGO people to the bottom of the line. Reverend Meyer encouraged participants to stretch their imaginations with their designs. “See if you can carry LEGO people to the bottom without it breaking apart… will (the creation) then drive away with wheels?”
Other stations included free-building with LEGOs, constructing various LEGO vehicles from specific LEGO sets, a “Pictionary” game in which participants constructed an image from a card with LEGOs while others had to guess what it was, LEGO HEXBUG habitats, and a green screen station where participants could bring their LEGO creation up on a screen with the background setting of their choice.
In addition to LEGOs, participants were able to construct large forts in a hallway and “bridges” with small red plastic cups, play dough, popsicle sticks and paper towel tubes which had to be constructed so that they could hold 21 elephant toys.
Stations were also provided for refreshments, movie watching, reading, and guessing the number of LEGOs in a jar.
As a service project, participants colored pictures of LEGO figures to send to Jon Volkmar, a Kendall resident currently serving in U.S. Armed Forces, Charland said.
Photos by K. Gabalski
