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!