Don’t miss the LEGO® Education bricks set giveaway at the end!
Build and create with a LEGO Education set and the computer? We knew we’d like it. And the more we experimented, the more we learned, the more we enjoyed!
LEGO® Education WeDo Robotics is very easy to use for all our ages and a wonderful introduction to robotics. Our older middle and high school children also folded into the learning. The goal is for students to build simple machines – with working motors and sensors. The children also program their models using the WeDo Software v1.2. The electronic activity pack, includes 12 activities, and explores four different themes mentioned below.
What Does the LEGO WeDo Robotics Set Include?
The LEGO Education WeDo curriculum has twelve exciting project activities. It contains all of the pieces required to perform the activities–including a motor, gears, pulleys, electronic sensors, a printed teacher’s guide, and LEGO Education WeDo software.
The curriculum is divided into four sections: Amazing Mechanisms, Wild Animals, Play Soccer, and Adventure Stories. LEGO Education activities allow students to learn through four distinct phases, the “4C” learning process: Connect, Construct, Contemplate, and Continue.
- Connect – Adding to knowledge by connecting a new experience to experiences you already have.
- Construct – Children learn by building models. The WeDo activities include step-by-step instructions. The instructions are visual and are easily followed.
- Contemplate – Students observe and report how changes in the model affect its behavior. They make predictions about the effects of the proposed change-then make the change and observe the result.
- Continue – Students are challenged to build more complex and advanced models.
What Are The System Requirements?
The LEGO Education WeDo software will run on most computers made within the last 2-3 years. The system requirements are:
PC:
- Intel® Pentium® processor or compatible, 800 MHz minimum
- Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 with latest Service Pack
- 512 MB of RAM minimum
- 150 MB of available hard-disk space
- DVD drive
Mac:
- Apple MacOS X v.10.5 or 10.6
- Intel processor
- 512 MB of RAM minimum
- 150 MB of available hard-disk space
- DVD drive
Pictured here is the construction of activity four, Hungry Alligator. We constructed the Alligator and then wrote a program with the WeDo software to move the alligator’s mouth. All of our children, from age 16 to age 5 were excited about building and programming the alligator.
After the construction and basic program were complete, the youngest boy sat at the computer making changes in the program. The program elements are pictorial and can be dragged and dropped into the program window to change the program. He made many changes–carefully observing what each change did to the overall program.
All gathered around to make another project – the ‘dancing birds’ – and watch them spin!
Everyone was excited about their turn at the computer to make changes to the alligator’s operation. All ages were able to make changes to the program, and watch to see how the alligator behaved differently with each change. They are all excited about future lessons.
Here is a 30 second video of our youngest son, age five, playing with the sound commands for the alligator.
Can you tell he tried out all the sounds?
Where Can You Get LEGO Education WeDo Robotics?
You can get your LEGO® Education WeDo Robotics curriculum at the LEGO Education website.
The LEGO Education Bonuses
- As a bonus, LEGO Education sends additional activities to you via email. These “challenges” allow the LEGO Education WeDo curriculum to continue to have fresh, new activities to explore.
- There is a homeschool section of the LEGO Education website full of educational ideas, prompts and products for home education.
~We received the LEGO WeDo Robotics set in exchange for an honest review. We are very pleased to be a part of the LEGO Educator Official Blogging Team. All opinions are our own and the children continue to beg for LEGO Education time. We see many more LEGO learning hours in our future! Please see our disclosure policy.
Now for the Giveaway!
LEGO® is giving away one (1) Bricks set (valued at $54.95 and pictured above). Simply follow the instructions in the rafflecopter widget below to enter to win!
Soon we’ll be sharing a review of the LEGO® StoryStarter set!
lots of free play
We try to tie lego’s into whatever we are working on in school and make it fun!
I have four boys. Pretty much everything involves building or tinkering. it’s just what they do!
From how many pancakes can be stacked on one plate to how much laundry can you fit into a certain place. My favorite is how much can you put in the trunk of the car without breaking anything!
Looks like fun! Thank you for reviewing this, it sounds like something my boys would love!
I often incorporate building with Legos, Lincoln Logs, blocks, etc into history and science. Sometimes we just spend time being creative.
Our kids are constantly building something, whether it is inside out of blankets, chairs, pillows, blocks, legos, lincoln logs or outside out of blankets, trees and sticks. They also just helped their dad build a playhouse this summer.
My son is constantly building something. He is so creative with his Lego’s. He really would love the Robotics set. What a great way to spend extra some time with instead of a video game.
We use legos to build whatever we are learning about. Most recently the Liberty Bell with the crack included. Use them for math, too!
My boys play legos all the time. They also use Snap Circuits which is tons of fun as well.
I find different lego challenges online that my daughter loves to do!
My kids are always building something and using their imagination. They are either constantly drawing their ideas out, building with legos, or playing minecraft.
My boys LOVE Legos. My oldest is great at following the instructions to build. Then he makes up his own creations.
Sounds like fun 🙂
would love to win this for my son
My kiddos would love this!
My 11 year old boy and 5 year old girl love to play with Legos. We try to incorporate them with our studies, but not as often as I should.
Looks like fun, I think my kids would get a kick out a lego alligator that moved. Thanks for sharing.
My kids are 3 an 5, so they incorporate imaginative play naturally. My 5yo has been obsessed with LEGO lately, but we haven’t incorporated it into school lessons. He would love this!
My 5 boys would LOVE this set!!!!
Wow – these look like such a neat teaching tool! We already love legos, so this would be a cool way to take it up a notch- and sneak in a little programming lesson.
This looks really cool! Would love to have this for our homeschool!
He builds all day long; from sky scrapper dirty dishes in the sink to his beloved Legos and ramps for his marbles, and on and on and on. These look amazing, he would be so excited!
scraper
We have a ton of blocks and books and non-electronic toys easily accessible for the boys and it is great!
I never knew that Lego had educational materials. Will definitely check that out.
We have lego time everyday and I’m amazed at the ideas he can build.
My son likes to build and make things. I know he would live this.
Lego’s are a great homeschool resource. I would love to win this for my boys. Thanks.
we do a lot of construction things in our homeschooling. like we are learning about castles and math. we use blocks and math to build the castles.
we use blocks legos and books
My husband and son have used the Lego NXT program for building robots. They have incredible learning toys and this one looks great too!!!
My boys love LEGO’s. I think this looks like something I will be picking up for our homeschool for next year!!
I allow for a lot of free play and encourage exploration. I encourage my son to follow his interests.
For me the best way to get them doing anything along those lines is say something like “Wouldn’t it be cool if that big box could be a club house?” And then give them space and let their imaginations take over. I feel over doing structured anything is hurting their creativity. Plus they do much cooler stuff when I back off anyway!
Right now, my son is writing an essay on why it is important to protect our oceans, and building a Lego scene to depict his writing.
We use Lego for math, spacial reasoning and just for fun learning. We love Lego around here!
We luv Legos here but have never incorporated it into any formal learning studies
We like to use hands-on projects that relate to the topics we are learning.
My boys love to make models of anything we are learning about in school. It’s fun to see how they use Lego so creatively.
I find my kids often building scenes from literature and from our history and science studies. It’s their favorite toy.
Last year we did a unit on bridges – it was perfect for Lego incorporation and by the end we had all sorts of bridges on display. So fun.
Legos are often the go-to item for free play in our house. They all just love to build and play. Our oldest also has Snap Circuits that he is using for science. So lots of designing and building going on here.
My son loves to build. It is great for imaginations to work. This looks fantastic!
I would love to start incorporating some of the Lego Education products into our homeschool for my four kids! What an awesome way to make learning real and fun!
I haven’t really succeeded yet at incorporating design or building into our day. I keep thinking the kids could do that sort of play when I read out loud to them, but most days having to fold the laundry fills that time and squeezes out the opportunity to build and design.
My son want to be a Lego engineer and we have yet to get a standard box of Legos! His favorites have been ninjago!
I usually leave legos or blocks out for the kids to use during read aloud time and “waiting for mom” time.
They boys all adore Legos and it doesn’t take any encouragment to get them to play with them all day long – heck, it’s hard to pull them away.
My son loves to build things … legos and games like minecraft have help him in his building … this would be wonderful to see what he could make and have fun with it at the same time
We love legos!
my daughter adores all things lego!!
We just start to play with LEGO and the learning opportunities present themselves at every turn
I have a couple of K*Nex Educational sets that help the kids to explore building bridges and such. Also I still have my old Lego and Lego books for the kids to build new and fun things.
Sometimes we also use the Lego to build things like Ziggurat and the long house of Canadian First Nations.
We love Lego’s and we have been lucky to do a similar thing here with a very talented engineer. We would love to do this a home!!! Thanks for the give away.
We haven’t tried this yet, but would love to! Thanks for the review!
We often build from our Bible or history lesson…it just naturally comes out! The boys just finished a lego pyramid complete with sarcophagus!
The kids use Legos to build what they’re learning all the time. This would be so fun!
Cool! We love Lego’s hopefully we can use them more in school.
We take legos with us in the car or camping and challenge the childern to build something they saw.
Would love to win this! We incorporate Lego challenges into our weekly activities!
My son especially needs no encouragement other than free play time to build, explore and create with whatever he has available… but he usually uses LEGO’s. When my daughter is given building block type things, she tends to make them into creatures and then role play with those rather than build structures. So interesting how different they are!
We encourage the kids to recreate landmarks that we are studying. It’s fun to see what their imaginations can come up with and what stands out to them about what they study!
We are just beginning to build with Lego’s at my house and I’ve been REALLY wanting to get the Lego Education sets. Thanks for the wonderful review and the giveaway opportunity.
This is a great way for homeschoolers to be inventive and creative! Thank you for offering this giveaway! My daughter is very talented at building things but she is my youngest of all girls so I don’t have Legos. This would be amazing for her to have it at home to work with!
I love the idea of lego learning. Haven’t added it in yet but I would like too.
I don’t do any formal teaching with LEGOS! All of my children love to build and create, I don’t know how to incorporate learning into their fun.
I let him go at it and create whatever he would like.
We use legos to build mini-replicas of whatever we are studying!
I have three boys, so I always look for ideas to keep hands busy! I like to issue a challenge to create things and give them a few days to complete it (a building, an outside object, something that moves, etc.).
We love Legos and I’d love to these to take Legos to the next level! My boys are always building and creating. my 7yo even writes blue prints to sketch out his ideas!
Free play! Setting up LEGO and Playmobil “stations” around the house.
My 2 year old already loves Duplo, and we build almost every day. This giveaway would be a great way to continue his learning and his love of Lego!
All four of my kids love LEGO’s. This looks like lots of FUN learning time!
My son grew up playing with Legos. My nephew is homeschooling his children & the Legos brick set would be appreciated & used by all 6 children.
Would love a chance to win these bricks for a certain homeschooler. Thanks for the review & chance in the give-away!
We have blocks, tinker toys and all kinds of things to build with. We have Legos that a friend was kind enough to give us – would love to win – def outside of the budget.
I showed this post to my son. He wants to be a Lego designer/engineer when he grows up. This is something we will definitely look into buying. Thanks for the review.
This is an awesome kit….lots of learning going on!!
Right now I just make sure my children have plenty of time for free play. I don’t feel creative enough to make up ways to incorporate building into school!
We have lots of blocks and one set of legos that the kids love to play with!
So cool!! My four boys would love this!!
We incorporate blocks into as much as possible, from math to geography! Of course, general building is the most fun, my boys love making bridges and seeing how much weight they can hold before they collapse!
Love! using Legos to learn….writing, building, writing about building Legos!
I’m glad I found this incredible giveaway! My 7yo would make use of this for homeschooling! She excels at building, but with all older sisters we don’t have things like Lego’s! What’s better is that these are actual kits that are educational! Yay!
All 3 of my kids have their own Legos and they love building anything at any time!!!
We have a lot of reading so first I show the art steps & then leave those for the kids to look at while I read. 🙂 if we are reading a book (not for school)- we have been reading through the Redwall series! Then that a great lego time.
legos .. my son loves to spend time alone building and creating with legos for hours. thanks for the chance.
We have lots of free play! The kids also attend a think class and a lego class at coop to get them started at home!
My kids love to build ! We have a legos everywhere! We include building and imaginary play into our home schooling, but also the kids get to help design and build chicken coops and outside projects at our house.
Legos have always been a HUGE part of our homeschool. We work on color patterns, math, science and just for fun building!
We do lots of playing with legos and duplos while we listen to CC!
What a fabulous giveaway. We are huge Lego fans!
We have not used Lego yet in our curriculum, but have wanted to for some time.. I’m glad to see an honest review of how it works and how you use it.. hopefully we can start using it soon!! Thanks!!
We’re doing a lot of Minecraft with our learning – building shelters into biomes or castles for the Middle Ages….and Legos? Well, they love their Simply Machine kits…and MOUNTAINS of Legos we have around the house.
We just do a lot of building during free play.
Mine would looooove this!
My girls would LOVE this! I let them tinker and create during read alouds or when we the little ones need to keep their hands busy.
We totally need this! My kids LOVE legos!
We write sentences or stories about what they create. They love it!!
We incorporate legos into our math studies everyday from the little 3yr old learning numbers to the 8yr old learning multiplication and the 10yr old with the fractions…. but would love to do some robotics classes!!! Thanks for this opportunity.
My boys would love this, especially my 5 year old little engineer!
We use Legos in almost every aspect, from math and counting to just keeping finger busy so he can listen. We build something new on a daily basis. 🙂 thanks for the giveaway.
My three youngest play with Legos constantly! They would love Lego Education! Thank you, Hodgepodge, for this opportunity!
I find that my kids naturally build or create as long as they have plenty of free time.
We love legos! Havent tried the robotics but just building is what all 5 kids love in our house! To help teach reading skills I write words on the sides and they build the lego to build a word or sentence. Its fun!
I have to admit its not there daily. :/
We use Lego’s to learn patterns, counting, we used Sharpie to write letters and numbers on them so they can line them up in order, and some of the bigger blocks have sight words written on them in liquid chalk, so we can change them depending on the phonics family or theme that we are working on.
let them work with their dad outside. plus we have some building toys like Legos.
We do a lot of free play. My son is really into Legos and he’s ready to take it to the next step with Robotics!
My boys act out different things we are studying/reading or just having fun with. Today we made a pyramid – simple – but they did include a burial chamber.
I let the kids play with their Lego bricks while I read aloud as long as they are quiet.
And we have all sorts of building blocks and links in our home. I try to pull them out in rotation each week and it’s neat to see how much more elaborate their building gets.