Possibly my Final Post but Certainly Not our Final Build!

Our most recent build of “El Toro Loco” went the most smoothly of all our previous builds. I found Christian now more engaged and excited to perform our build. This was the highest piece set we had attempted thus far at 247pcs and I’m proud to say we finished it with time to spare! Although this may seem like a small task, we’ve come a long way from where we had started. We were unable to finish a truck with 35 less pieces in an hour during our first build and now I have no doubt we may be able to get close to a 300pc set done within that time frame! Christians hands on and problem-solving skills have developed week to week in the first week he was somewhat discouraged while trying to put the first truck together, constantly asking for help. With this last build he took the lead and rarely asked for help! 

This project has helped me in various ways, I learned that it is possible to develop basic hands on and problem-solving skills in children using a simple toy like Lego. I had also developed various ways of motivating him to stay focused and not become discouraged, I think those lessons will help me further down the line in my teaching career. I enjoyed being able to do this project with Christian because I truly believe he has grown from it, but also because I was able to still devote some time to him in my new hectic lifestyle.  

As for what would I have changed? I guess I may have reworded my initial genius hour question. I figured it would be easy to build at least 2 trucks within the hour, but this wasn’t the case. At the end of this last hour Christian was disappointed that it was going to be our last week saying, “but we still have one more truck!” and he is right so we will likely continue our Sunday night build for another week. After that I think we may take on a bigger project that I know will not take us more than an hour just to keep challenging him! Thank you for following along and I hope you now see the value of the simple toy Lego like I do!  

            

Build #2! Max-D!

Although Christian and I did not finish our build during last week's hour, we made up some ground this week! In this week's hour we were able to complete the "Grave Digger" build quickly and jump right into our "Max-D". The hardest part of this week was trying to get Christian to stay focused because as soon as the first truck was fully built, he just wanted to play with it. I would have to continue motivating him too by ensuring him that if we managed to get both trucks done in this hour, he could race them and play with them both!  

So on to the second build of "Max-D", if there was one thing, I had learned doing the first build was we were very unorganized! Since we were very excited to get building the contents of the box were dumped on the table and then the treasure hunt for the correct blocks started. I was pretty sure if we spent a little time organizing the components this time it would help us achieve our build faster. I noticed his skill set developing from the previous week. He was using some of the tricks I had taught him to connect blocks and stay on track in the instruction manual, although things did not always go smoothly, I was thrilled with the progress he had made. We were able to get both builds accomplished minus the stickers! But I still have a few more ideas on how to speed up our process so stay tuned! 

  

The First Build!!

Welcome to the moment you have been waiting for....... The first build! As I had previously posted Christian, and I concluded on building a group of "Monster Jam" monster trucks which can each be built into two different models which also come with a pullback motor. I had purchased a bonus pack version that included 4 of the 6 figures to get started on.  

The 4 “Monster Jam” trucks include:  

212 piece “Grave Digger” 

230 piece “Max-D” 

247 piece “El Toro Loco” 

260 piece “Megalodon”  

Although Christian really wanted to start off with “Megalodon” because the sharklike look was the coolest! We started with “Grave Digger” because apart from it being one of the original monster trucks in real life, it was the lowest on piece count. Since this would be our first our first build, I wanted to be able to use this as a gage of how difficult and how much time it might take to complete one model. I figured if we could improve the build time moving forward with more complicated models in the future this would be a considered a huge improvement! 

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/monster-jam-grave-digger-42118

Now for the fun part, the actual building! Seeing that these Lego “Technic” kits use different blocking systems designed to be slightly more difficult I wanted to see how Christian would respond. I got my answer quickly upon dumping contents of the box on the table he looked at me and asked, “Are you sure this is Lego?” We set the timer to 60 minutes, opened the instruction manual and got to work. There were plenty of times he was unsure as to how to connect certain components and I had to find various strategies that would help simplify things for him, such as using the table to click pieces together, and making sure he was following along with the instructions correctly to name a few. But I do believe he had come a long way in just 60 minutes. Although we did not fully complete our first project, I had taken a ton of mental notes on how to improve our time management moving forward! Stay tuned to see our finished “Grave Digger” and start of “Max-D”! 

Lego is Lego Right?

So this week during my genius hour I had to set the ground work moving forward. First I had to make sure my sister and nephew Christian were both on board with my new Lego building venture, this was not a very hard task as my nephew was very overjoyed with the idea. Then came the hard part, decisions on what would we build?

Having not really paid any attention to Lego in many years I didn't realize how many versions of the classic building block toy there was. So Christian and I, sat on on the couch and scrolled through Lego.com looking at various movie/TV show themed sets. We eventually concluded that building vehicles would be the easier to display and more fun to play with later, as an automotive technician I was not going to turn that down! Upon filtering through various vehicles, we realized Lego now has many different levels of difficulty and also various types of block systems. Since Christian has never worked with the Lego "Technic" type of block system and it seems a like a higher difficulty level, we decided to test our limits. In this line up we discovered a group of "Monster Jam" monster trucks which can each be built into two different models and come with a pull back motor, to add even more of a fun factor once we are finished building. This group of trucks consists of 6, with all versions consisting of over 200pcs, so it should fit into my criteria perfectly. I ordered a bonus pack version that included 4 of the 6 figures! But now we wait for next weeks hour to start our building venture.

Stay tunned to see which one we will start off with!

https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/technic?icmp=HP-SHQL-Standard-TC_QL_42123_HP-TH-TC-F7TJMNSKCR

 

Welcome!

Hello there! My name is Kyle, I am an automotive service technician by trade. Currently I am enrolled in Brock Universities Technical Education Program. This, like many other of my classmates, is my first ever blog post! This blog will follow my genius hour journey for the next 6 weeks, where you will be following along seeing "How many 200+ piece Lego sets can I build with a 6-year-old, only using 60 minutes a week for 6 weeks?".  

Now before you quickly exit the page wondering "Why exactly would I want to know that?" hear me out. I recently read an article for my studies called “Why your teenager can’t use a hammer” by Cynthia Reynolds, published in Mcleans magazine August 25, 2011. It got me thinking about how basic skills are now declining fast in younger generations due to the rise in technology. My nephew, being only 6 years old falls into this demographic. Now although building with Lego toys may seem like simple child's play, there are plenty of basic skills that it helps to develop in children. Those basic skills can be eventually transferred to bigger projects or even future careers in trades.  

The goal of this project, aside from me being able to still spend quality time with my nephew despite a busy schedule of working full-time while attending school, is to see if he can develop organization, time management, and hands-on skills. While learning the importance of following steps in the instruction manual. All those basic skills are what I use daily in my trade, speaking from experience this toy helped me when I was his age. I am looking forward to getting started and showing everyone just how many cool builds, we can produce! 

 

Mcleans (August 25, 2011). Retrieved January 14, 2023, from 

https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/why-your-teenager-cant-use-a-hammer/