Something that is developing in many schools which is really exciting are these events where the schools host a STEM night or maybe even a STEM day in their school. The schools bring in local businesses and people to showcase how STEM is all over the community and to expose families and students about the opportunities for jobs and ways to earn a living when they grow up.
While working with a teacher for their upcoming event for 1st graders I was reminded of an activity I developed a few years back for parent teacher conferences for my middle school. I created a slidedeck of about 20 LEGO build ideas that a parent(s) could do with their child. The goal was not to get fancy in the builds, but to have the parents and kids interact, engage in an activity together, and have some fun working towards a small goal.
How the activities work are quite simple. The families sit at a table where there is a bucket of random LEGO pieces. Every five minutes a new challenge appears on the screen with a new build challenge. Some are working together, some are individual builds where they guess the builds, some are challenges, some are free form.
I wanted to share the slides with everyone in hopes that it inspires others. I would love to hear your ideas. If you use this, then please send pictures so I can report back. If you have other good build ideas please share also and I will add to the slidedeck. The more we work together, the more everyone wins.
Here are the slides and challenges
If your school hosts Family STEM events I would love to hear more about how you organize and what you showcase. We could even do a podcast episode together.
I recently did a challenge with a student where they had to create every letter in the alphabet using the same number of lego pieces in each letter (was a lot harder than we expected). Now he is using that and creating a stop motion video of building the alphabet in legos.