Cassandra Jane Hawkings

Vast The Reign of the LEGO Bricks 5th February, 2017 | Toys and Games | Deadline: 5th February, 2017, 5PM Meta Description: LEGO blocks have been around for generations and have encouraged creativity in kids and adults of all ages. We get a look inside the LEGO craze in 2017. “Everything is awesome when you’re part of a team.” - The LEGO Movie Introduction LEGO blocks have been apart of most households around the world for generations. They encourage kids, their parents as well as big kids at heart to come up with something unique within their creative minds. It gets people away from technology and brings them together in a way technology will not. In this article, we will be talking about how using LEGO block can help enhance a child’s math skills and how they can increase their willingness to do mathematics. Hopefully, the article will also inspire parents to be creative when it comes to getting their children to do their maths homework without any arguments. Using the Imagination There is no doubt in the world that creativity is a powerful, motivational tool, especially when it comes to kids and their parents helping them with their homework for school. We all know that kids of all ages love LEGO Nexo Knights Jestro’s Volcano Lair construction set and that of LEGO Creator 10247 Ferris wheel which will unleash a lot of creativity in kids’ minds. BargainShopUK has seen a lot of these products sold and we highly recommend them both as they both great collectible sets to add to one’s expanding LEGO collection. What people don’t actually realise is that LEGO is more than just a miniature construction tool and, plaything that unleashes the creativity of the mind. It can also assist in tutoring children in learning mathematics and to make the subject more enjoyable and not at all dull like teachers can often make it. We all know a child who has struggled with their mathematics skills at some point or another so alternative methods have been invented to improve this. A Simple Maths Tool Whoever thought that LEGO would be the ideal maths companion for kids was a total genius in our eyes. There are a bunch of different sized bricks in a standard pack of LEGO. The blocks can be used as a substitute for numbers that are simply written on the page. Say for example you are trying to teach your child what fractions are what. However, they cannot get their heads around which is which. That is where LEGO bricks come into play. They can be used to depict what the fraction might look like in realtime. For example, one full LEGO brick which has 8 connector points can represent 1 while a 4 connector point brick could represent half or 1/2. 1 Vast LEGO doesn’t just have to be used for fractions. It can be used for adding, subtraction, times and division as well. It can be really helpful in building a child’s skills to the point where they don’t need assistance. LEGO can even help your child get their heads around square numbers and the differences between mean, median, mode and range. Pretty neat right? We thought it was. Tips on being Creative with your child’s Maths Maths can be fun when you have something fun to go with it. We thought it would be fun to come up with some basic tips to get your child motivated to improve their maths skills. Here are a few tips that might help. We have also included some helpful tips to avoid stress, distraction and confusion. • • • • • • • • • • • Encourage your child with a small reward every few questions and then give them a slightly bigger reward when they complete all the questions correctly. If your child is picky with the LEGO blocks, separate the blocks into colours instead of using all the colours at one time. Make a game out of maths questions and tell them not to think of the questions as school related or homework. Give them plenty of encouragement and tell them that they can do it if they try really hard and have faith in themselves. Treat LEGO bricks like a dismantled abacus. Try and explain the question as simply as you can to your child and then break the question down into smaller parts. To avoid confusing your child, move LEGO pieces that are not being used over to the side where they won’t interfere with their learning. If you have divided the bricks up into colours, use each colour for a certain section. For example, if the section your child is doing is addition and subtraction, you could use green bricks while you could use red bricks for fractions. Concentrate on teaching your child one thing at a time. This will prevent them becoming confused and confusing one skill for another. Be sure to allow your child small breaks to prevent stress and tantrums. Do not allow technological devices to be in the room with the child while homework being completed. Conclusion Everybody knows that LEGO bricks just very well might be the key to helping your child in developing killer skills in mathematics while allowing them to have fun at the same time. Even the parents will find themselves having fun if they allow themselves to do so. Those of us here at BargainShopUK loved the idea the moment we heard about it and are glad to have been given the opportunity to talk about it in this article, as many of us have kids ourselves or we are just big kids at heart. Either way, we have even considered using this method ourselves instead of using the calculators on our phones. That will teach us to use our phones all the time. As always, we would love to hear what you have to say about the article. Drop us a comment or write your feedback on one of our social media accounts. We would love to 2 Vast hear from you. Also, we would love to hear what your kids have to say about using LEGO to help them do their homework. 3