LEGO MiniMasters 6: Celebrating Women’s History Month

Kids love LEGO. Let’s be honest. Also, a lot of kids are home from school right now with parents who need to work remotely at the same time. Finding ways to (quietly) entertain kids is probably going to be difficult for a lot of us. So, with that in mind, when I came up with the idea based on my own kid’s recent “I wanted to do it, so I built it” intensity, I thought, “why not try to come up with a daily challenge while we’re all home?” Basically, if I have to write it up for myself and my kiddo, I then decided, “Well, I might as well share them on GeekMom so that if other parents want to use them, they can.” Using the show LEGO Masters, my previous interactions with LEGO Education, and what I know my kid learns in school as my inspiration, I designed this LEGO MiniMasters post series.

See previous MiniMasters posts:

LEGO MiniMasters 1: Ecosystem

LEGO MiniMasters 2: Community

LEGO MiniMasters 3: Estimation Station

LEGO MiniMasters 4: Area Arena

LEGO MiniMasters 5: Volume Vehicle

What Is Women’s History Month?

If you need some resources, I found elementary level and middle/high school level sources so that you can refresh your kids’ memories or give them the definitions necessary.

This page by Ducksters has resources for younger kids.

This website based on a collection of resources from The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a pretty fantastic set of articles for middle schoolers and up.

You can take the suggested “measurements” and adjust according to skill level.

Design a Women’s History Month Design: Directions for Kids

With this challenge, you need to create something to celebrate Women’s History Month. It can be anything that celebrates either a famous woman in history, women’s accomplishments to science/art/music/history, or something that is your interpretation  of a way to celebrate women’s history month.

You need to tell a story about the design- either the biography of the chosen historical event/woman or how your design showcases women in history.

Planning Phase for Women’s History Month Design

The first 30 -40 minutes should be your planning phase.

Think about all the things you want your vehicle to have. Including:

• Shape
• Size
• Types of bricks you need
• Characters

Building Phase for the Women’s History Month Design

This can take as long as you would like. We suggest 40-80 minutes depending on age and complexity of the design.

Your build should include:

• The characters
• The things the characters need to have
• Anything else that your planning phase incorporated

Parent Judging Criteria

Creativity/originality:

• Does this look personalized or like a picture your child has seen?
• What makes this design “yours”?
• Did you include research?
• How did you manage to incorporate Women’s History Month as a theme?

Design:

• Visual
  • How did you use the colors?
  • How do the colors support the story?
  • Does it have unique shapes?
• Construction
  • Was it sturdy enough to make it from the build location to the judging location?
  • Were there any unique construction methods used? (Think, the shape, layout—anything that looks like the construction is creative)
  • Size: the bigger the design, the more the child has to plan

Storytelling:

• How much of the story can the judge see on their own?
• What is the level of detail
  • If Minifigures are used, are they “showing” part of the story by how they’re posed?
  • Are there interactions between the different elements?

If you’d like to share your child’s builds in the comments—please do! We’d love to see them!