Lego Wars

This week Joaquin found some videos online that somehow reawakened his passion for lego building. The canvas was finally ready for a game I had often suggested in the past without luck; we’re calling it “Lego Wars”, and of course it is tied to Joaquin’s current motivation for competitions among his muñequitos.

The structure goes: Joaquin presents two competitors, I give them a random building challenge, each muñequito builds his own version of it within a set time, and then I offer feedback for each construction and choose a winner among them. After a few rounds, we’ve added a variation: Winning competitors have an option to an advantage in their next challenge; they may either get 2 extra minutes of building time, or the opportunity to receive some feedback prior to finishing the construction.

I’m loving the ideas Joaquin is coming up with, and I believe that the variation of the challenges and the activity of building two different versions for each concept, enriches his creativity and problem solving skills. We continue to practice “show and tell” as the characters need to present their product, and then listen and discuss my feedback. Of course this activity also creates a conversation topic for us, as Joaquin is often interested in rehashing his understanding of past motivating events.

Here are some of the pieces after three full days of building challenges:

Joaquin is currently working on some blog posts to document each contest. It’s lovely to hear his little voice composing his writing out loud and asking me for word spelling. Will share those gems as soon as they are published…