Hello Hello it’s me again, I know it’s been forever and a day since I last wrote, but I kinda hit a “I have nothing really to blog about phase”, so wasn’t going to waste your time reading posts that could potentially waste 20 minutes of your life ha ha ha ha… But I am back and the reason I am back on here is because there is something I feel so passionate about that I had to share…It’s no secret that in our house we are HUGE LEGO fans, I actually wish we had more LEGO than our current stock but we still need our kidneys so we building it up slowly but surely ha ha ha ha ha…
I have chatted to a couple of moms about how their kids play with LEGO and I kinda get the feeling that these days LEGO is somewhat turned into more of a trophy type toy than an actual lets have fun and play toy…What I mean to say is that when the LEGO is built some people then keep it in a special room or have special shelves so that it doesn’t get broken and the kids don’t really get a chance to play with it… Yes they can look and admire all their hard work but then it gets shelved away for safe keeping…. I really can understand why too and I myself am so guilty of this… The other day when Maya lost one of the boosters from her rocket ship playing in the sand pit I almost had a mild heart attack…!! My head instantly starting going into over drive logical thinking like “now where do I get another booster from”, “how much will that cost”, “the whole toy is now useless cause it’s missing a booster” … Then of course I lost it and went into “do you know how much this stuff costs…!” and “you don’t care about your toys mode” … But then after a glass of gin that evening that calmed the stress of the day I realized I may have over reacted just a little ha ha ha…I realized she had so much fun imagining that the rocket was launching into outer space and created a whole adventure it was on… Her and her friend where in outer space for that one moment in time and that small piece of LEGO must have accidentally fallen off as the rocket reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, that happens in real life too so in retrospect it wasn’t too much collateral damage for an afternoon of space exploring….
This got me thinking and I started looking into the history of LEGO…. I found out that the original LEGO group started in a carpentry Workshop run by a guy named Ole Kirk Christiansen and they named it LEGO after the Danish phrase “leg godt” which means “play well”… So you see its even in the name they must play well with it not let it sit on the shelf well ha ha ha.. Which means I guess I can’t be too mad with Maya playing and losing her booster accidentally it was really a “play well” experience which is what LEGO was designed for, and in hind sight we can build another booster and yes maybe the spaceship won’t be picture perfect but it might be a “Master Builder” improved booster…
The great thing about LEGO is that it’s supposed to be used over and over again and allow the child to create new creations from their own imagination… I often fall short of this too, I am so focused on the girls following the instructions to the “t” that I hardly leave space for their own creativity to design new things… I love the instruction booklets I think they create things that are amazing and so full of detail, some things I could have never even dreamt of creating… And for Maya who struggles at times with spacial orientation this is the perfect tool to get her to practice improving those skills… But I do feel that letting kids be the “Master Builder” gets lost at times… By this point I know you like what the hell is a “Master Builder” …? LEGO recently released the LEGO movie recently that promotes the idea “Master Builders”, these are the good guys who have the ability to build anything out of bricks without using any instructions…. It’s all centered around the principle that LEGO blocks are designed to encourage unimaginable possibilities… So, armed with this new knowledge I decided we going to explore new possibilities and creations with LEGO, but what to build where to start is the question…? Of course, you know how my brain works so: “when in doubt paint…!” Since the girls are so into space at the moment we decided to make LEGO print space aliens…!
For LEGO aliens you will need:
- LEGO pieces of different sizes and shapes
- Liquid Tempera Paint (any colours you wish) … You need it to be washable paint so it can wash off the bricks afterwards…
- Paper
- Shallow bowls/plates to put paint
- Paintbrush (optional)
How to make LEGO aliens:
- Put the different colour paints into their shallow bowls or plates…
- You can earlier paint the paint onto the LEGO brick or just dunk the brick into the paint.
- Then press the LEGO down onto the paper and lift up.
- Then let them create the alien as they want to using the different bricks.
- If there are wheels let them try rolling it, let them explore different ways of printing…
- Give them the freedom to explore after all we don’t really know what an alien looks like so they can use their imagination and create as they wish…
- Have Fun
- The results are stunning and PERFECTLY IMPERFECT….
It was actually so much fun to paint with a new material and the aliens came out perfectly imperfect… I have decided to get more bang for my buck when it comes to how we use our LEGO and I am slowly trying to let it be more of a “played with well” toy…. I am so grateful to be back in your email box and sharing my mind and thoughts with you again, see you sooner than the last time ha ha ha….Wishing you a week of unimaginable possibilities..!
Love
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