Summer Lego Lab

Once upon a time there was a family of children who ADORED all things Lego. They begged their mom for a summer full of Legos. The mom thought and thought and came up with a plan. They’d spend the summer with a Lego Lab, and that mom, being a sneaky, but brilliant mom, would use the Lego Lab to continue with their language lessons, after all, what better way to be inspired to tell a story than to build it with Legos. School disguised as play! So, not wanting to burden herself with planning and designing lessons (after all, she needed a summer break, too), she searched high and low for something already ready to use. And eureka! She found it. Quickly, she ordered it (and winced only once at the price, rationalizing that Lego character sets could easily be just as expensive but not nearly so open-ended plus the convenience factor of having lessons already ready, Lego pieces organized beautifully and with purpose and a software program with raving reviews obliterated any second thoughts she might possibly have). She and the children waited, very impatiently, for the first day of “summer school” and voila! today you can find this mom kicking up her heels, reaping the benefits of a brilliant idea as all these little minds are engaged, active and learning. Grammar lessons disguised as a Lego Lab…seriously brilliant! I thought you might enjoy a sample of what the Lego Lab is producing. This particular lesson was focused around the fairy tale genre. We brainstormed ideas about what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale and special characteristics of fairy tales. We discussed fairy tales that they know and are familiar with and checked to see if they had all the characteristics that we had listed (they did!). Then I gave the kids an idea starter and off they went to finish the story by building in the Lego Lab. *Unfortunately, we’re having an issue with the StoryVisualizer software, which the Lego team is working very diligently to solve. In the meantime, we’re using good old-fashioned Word to record our stories.

The Battle of the Knight and the Princess by Joey

Once upon a time, there was an unhappy princess. She was in her castle, thinking about how to kill her enemies. She disguised herself as a bride getting married in the castle in case the bad guys broke in. Her enemies would think that she was just a bride. They would not realize she was the princess they were after.

There was a knock at the palace door. A stranger walked in and approached the princess. He gave her a chalice filled with potion and told her, “Drink this and it will make all your dreams come true.”

The stranger watched closely as the disguised princess thought about what to do with the chalice and the potion. “Will it really make my dreams come true?” thought the princess, “or will disaster strike and I will get wounded or killed?” She unsteadily drank the potion, with her hand shaking.

The empty chalice fell to the floor. The princess lay unconscious beside the chalice.

A moment later she was awakened by a handsome knight.

The knight said, “Get dressed in this,” and he gave her some knight armor to disguise herself.

He gave her a sword to go with the knight armor. They both went off into the shadows.

Then the two villains came to the spot where the knight and the princess were hiding. There was a short villain and one with a red hood. The one with the red hood said, “Show your faces.”

The knight said, “I have never shown my face since I became a knight, unless you consider when I go to bed.”

The princess just said, “No.”

The villains became angry with the princess and the knight. They went to go fetch their dragon. The short villain climbed onto the front of the dragon and the red-hooded villain climbed onto the back. They soared off into the sky.

The princess and the knight only had a little dragon, but he could fly, too. They both climbed onto their little dragon and flew away after the villains.

The good guys used their swords and cut off the wing of the evil dragon. The dragon, with the villains on his back, spiraled to the ground. The villains climbed off. The heroes steered their dragon to the ground and then they climbed off. The red-hooded villain revealed his sword, pulling it out, but the heroes already had their swords out and were ready to fight. A battle began.

Then the knight knocked the villain down with his skilled fighting techniques. The hood fell off, revealing an angry red face. Then the princess said to the red-hooded villain, “I am the princess you were hunting down, but now I’m going to put an end to you.” She picked him up and threw him off the side of the mountain. The villain was slashing his sword wildly as he flew through the air, trying to see if he could get back up, but he swung his sword so wildly that he cut off his own head.