This document outlines an activity using LEGO bricks to promote teamwork, creative thinking, and playfulness in learning. The session goals are to build new connections, work in small teams, enhance prior learning, understand the importance of play, infuse play into the classroom, and have fun. Participants engage in warmup exercises with the bricks before tackling challenges to build structured based on prompts within a time limit and share their creations. The discussion emphasizes that play is a form of learning and encourages creative approaches to using the bricks to represent concepts.

3. Session begins in
Grab 1 of each piece(20 total) & plastic bag
Share with a partner if you have one
Please get out a
piece of paper
include name and email

4. Designing Elements
of Teamwork:
Brick by Brick

5. This isn’t a show up and
throw up presentation.

6. I have one personal goal…….

7. To not feel like this about this session

8. But to feel like this!

9. Goals
• Build some new connections
• Work with a small team to remember joys of play
• Enhance prior learning
• Understand importance of play
• Infuse play with the classroom
• Have fun!

10. Improve?Innovate.

12. Photo by Tim Flach

13. Hacker noun ˈha-kər
One who combines excellence, playfulness,
cleverness and exploration into performed activities

16. Reality is perception:
not a reflection of truth

17. How do we do teamwork
and creative thinking better?differently

18. How many
different ways
can you use this
coffee cup?
Discuss at your tables

19. –Claude Debussy
Music is the silence between the notes

22. Talk < Action

23. We express who we are
through what we make.

24. Learning is about stuff that sticks.
Photo by Caleb Woods

25. Brick Builders Unite!
1. The LEGO build IS the answer
2. Everybody builds and everybody shares.
3. There is no ONE right answer.
4. Think with your hands!
5. Listen with your eyes
6. Be respectful in comments and builds

26. Challenge Flow
1 2 3
Part 1: The Challenge Part 2: Building Part 3: Sharing

27. Warmup Exercises
How to be a serious LEGO Ninja Creator in
a few minutes:
• Technical skills
• Metaphor skills
• Storytelling skills

28. Brain Warmup

32. Brain Warmup
Design and build the largest structure you can balance
on one orange 2x2 brick

33. Brain Warmup
Design and build the largest structure you can balance
on one orange 2x2 brick

34. Reset Your Pieces

35. Build a Tricky Tower
Don’t click the studs together. Only build with your non-dominant hand.

36. Brain Warmup
Build a Tricky Tower

37. Brain Warmup
Build a Tricky Tower

38. Reset Your Pieces

39. Hanging Around

40. Hanging Around
How many pieces can you get
to hang off the table?

41. Hanging Around Challenge

42. Gather Your Pieces

43. Free Build

44. Free Build

45. Share your builds

46. Your hands know a lot more
than you think they know!
Photo by Jeremy Yap

47. Making is an energy that relates
the parts to make a new whole!
Photo by Jeremy Yap

48. Find These
Pieces

49. That’s So Quack
Challenge

50. That’s So Quack Challenge
One minute. Build a duck. Share a duck.

51. That’s So Quack Challenge
One minute. Build a duck. Share a duck.

52. The POWER of imagination

53. Play is learning!
visual perception
systems thinking
long-term memory
mental imagery
attention
executive functioning
self-regulation
emotional regulation
self-efficacy
visual search
symbolic representations
spatial visualization
self-assessment
perspective-taking
adaptive social functioning
imitation
sensory-motor skills
cognitive flexibility
kinesthetic awareness
short-term memory
mental rotation
fine motor skills
working memory
spatial abilities

54. Think about this
• I had to think about what a duck looks like.
• I had to look at my inventory of materials to consider how to build.
• I had to put the bricks together.
• I had to change ideas.
• I needed to defer judgment and try to build.
• I needed to control my emotions (fear, panic, excitement).
• I had to encourage myself.
• I started to look at other ducks.
• I had to do something - so many times we do nothing!

55. Deep Thoughts With Jack Handy
coffeechug
“People themselves often don’t even
know what they know.”

56. Current Reality?

57. Current Reality?
MORE

58. Change your PERCEPTION?

59. Photo by Iker Urteag

60. Did you know?
6 2×4 bricks can be assembled into
915,000,000+
different combinations?

61. Grab 5 pieces
Assemble them in a random arrangement.

62. Symbols

64. Explain this!
• Practicing creative thinking and using metaphors is helpful.
• We can give bricks any meaning we want.
• You don’t need sophisticated LEGO technical skills,
because you can make a brick mean anything you like.

65. Going clockwise starting from the
person closest to the screen:
You have 30 seconds to explain
the topic given to you.

66. My object represents my best friend because

67. My object represents communication of because

68. My object represents my favorite teacher because

69. My object represents collaboration because

70. What did we experience that
can benefit your learning?

71. Think about the following:
• The learning journey is more important than the product
• The work is not the art; you are the art!
• What is the experience you’re trying to create?
• What are the learning goals and outcomes you want to
achieve?

72. Build What You Know
Think about what you are currently
teaching…….
Build a concept from that standard
Build an event
Build an element students struggle with

73. Content Build
Planning Time

74. Build Time

75. Share your builds

76. Classroom Connections
Idea Prompt
Literacy
Math
Science
Social Studies
STEM
Music
Universal Constructs

78. The scandal of education is
that every time you teach
something, you deprive a
child of the pleasure and
benefit of discovery.
Seymour Papert

79. Children are
current people
• More than future
employers
• More than an ID # on
a spreadsheet
• More than making a
school look good
Children
matter NOW!

80. The Payphone
Experience

81. Choose a “communicator” at the
table. The rest of you are “builders”.

84. Quick Share
•How did you feel?
•What would help you do a
better job as a team?

85. The Telephone Experience

86. Choose 2 “communicators” at the
table. The rest of you are “builders”.

89. At your table choose a Person A and
Person B. The rest of the table is the Group.

90. Round 1
BA 7 pieces

91. Round 1
A
?
B
Group

92. Round 1

93. Quick Share
•How did you feel?
•What would help you do a
better job as a team?

94. At your table choose a Person A and
Person B. The rest of the table is the Group.

95. Round 2
BA 7 pieces

96. Round 2
A
?
B
Group

97. Round 2

98. Quick Share
•How did you feel?
•What would help you do a
better job as a team?

99. At your table choose a Person A and
Person B. The rest of the table is the Group.

100. Round 3
BA 7 pieces

101. Round 3
A
?
B
Group

102. Round 3

103. Quick Share
•How did you feel?
•What would help you do a
better job as a team?

104. Ponder This….
• We all communicate differently
• There are other words to make people understand
• Sometimes we need more help to hear each other
• Working together is important and a process

105. Find These
Pieces

106. unDuck Challenge
One minute. Build anything but a duck.

107. unDuck Challenge
One minute. Build anything but a duck.

108. Share time!
Tell a convincing story that your build is what you claim it is.

109. Share time!
Tell a convincing story that your build is what you claim it is.

110. What will your story be?

111. 1+1=[[(9×3)/3]/3]-1

112. MAKE something
DIFFERENT

113. MAKE something
INNOVATIVE

114. MAKE something
AWESOMESAUCE

115. Curious
Perspective
Persistent
Playful
Sharing
Risk-takers

116. Ideas need to
become things!

117. You did not wake up
today to be mediocre.

118. Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one
thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy

119. Just start.

120. Now What?