LEGO ABCs: M is for Mindstorms

**Please read the important note at the end about next week!!**

Welcome to our weekly blogging through the alphabet series. This week is the letter M! It has been so fun and challenging to do this every week. Yesterday (and the day before) I was building and playing with LEGOs a lot in preparation for this week's and next week's post (because we'll be camping), and it was super fun. My kids are having a good time playing too. If you haven't done it yet, play LEGOs with your kids. It's actually pretty fun, and they'll love you forever!

This week we have a few things to share for the letter M, but we'll focus on our Mindstorms sets. And, co-host Chareen will be sharing about Math Resources for Home Education.

Before we get started let's have a glimpse of last week's letter L posts:

• Homeschooling Tips from A to Z: Letter L from Homeschooling Highway
• L is for Lee (American Civil War) from A Mom's Quest to Teach
• Check out all the links from last week at the Letter L link-up

Okay time for the letter M!

Let me just start out by saying that LEGO Mindstorms sets are not cheap. We have been blessed to receive these sets as part of our school funding, and one of the sets will actually have to go back to the school when/if we leave (unless we decide to buy it from them). So, with that said, if you ever get the chance to have your kiddos be a part of a LEGO robotics team it is a tremendous opportunity. Alex will be joining a LEGO league next school year, and that is one of the reasons we decided to get this set for him with his school funds.

We'll start with Alex's Mindstorm's set. He just got this at the end of this school year. He is very excited to learn about robotics, and have his own set to work with. 

Unboxing the set was interesting and exciting.

He doesn't know what a lot of these pieces do, but he was ready to try.

First, everything had to be sorted.

He immediately wanted to start building because he saw his older brother build a lot of things over the past few years, so he found some instructions for a sorting machine and started building. He quickly realized though, that beyond building he didn't know how to get it to operate.

So, after he had fun building that we went back to the beginning. There are beginning lessons from LEGO to get to know the Mindstorms system and how to program it. He built the basic driving base, and learned some basic coding and what the different sensors are.

I also went through these lessons myself so I can better understand and help him. I rebuilt the whole driving base too.

A few videos to show the action...

I was able to get it moving and turning in circles!

Aric's Mindstorms:

My older son Aric, got his Mindstorms set back in 2017. He became a Mindstorms pro mostly by himself. He built and programmed all kinds of things including this snake:

A robot...

I wish I could remember exactly what this robot did...

A guitar... (this one was pretty cool, even had guitar sounds)

He used to build all the time...

He even built a rubik's cube solver. It's one of my most viewed videos on Instagram. You can see that video here on Instagram. Or below! I figured out how to embed it, yay.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Desiree Winz (@desireewinz)

M is for Minifigures:

I can't let this letter M post go by without mentioning one of my favorite parts of LEGOs. Minifigures! or Minifigs if you like the sound of that better.

I recently saw a friend post about how her kids like to take pictures of their minifigs in action out in nature. I loved that idea so I tried to do something similar. Mine aren't as creative, but I had fun trying.

First, we have a ladybug minifig walking in one of our flower pots with some painted rocks.

 

Then we have the stand-up paddler out by the pool.

This guy, well he's just lost in a LEGO world...

M is for Marble Maze:

It seems lately I can never just pick one build for the week. I have so many fun ideas I want to share! This one is all over Pinterest, a LEGO Marble Maze. Basically, it's a large lego baseplate (any color) with bricks on it that make a pathway. We had fun making the pathway kinda easy at first and then moving the bricks around to make it trickier. 

The goal: get the marble from the beginning to the heart-shaped piece. Want more of a challenge? Add another marble and get BOTH marbles to the heart-shaped piece. This took me less than 20 minutes to make and one kiddo has had a blast with it. Another kiddo gave up. I've done it a few times and I really enjoyed it too. You want to know what surprised me about this? The marbles don't move smoothly because of the circles so that alone adds a challenge.

Here is a video of it in action: (done by Alex)

That's finally all of our LEGO fun this week! Thank you for reading and joining us!

Now it's your turn to share! Please join co-host Chareen and me as we blog through the alphabet and link-up below:

• Desiree @ Our Homeschool Notebook: All of my current ABC posts

• Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses: M is for Math Resources for Home Education

Edited: We will be taking a break next week for 4th of July (US holiday). We will be taking

the week off for family time and I realized that there may be several other families that might

need the week off too. Besides, it's a good time to take a break halfway through the alphabet!

I will also leave this linkup open an extra week!

**Rules for linking up:

1. Your post must be family-friendly. We have the right to remove any posts that are inappropriate. 
2. When linking up you agree to give us permission to share your post or a photo in any future blog posts and social media shares. 
3. Please link back to the host or co-hosts blog, and use the image if you want. 
4. If you can, check out a few other posts in the link-up and leave some comment love. 
5. Please, make sure your posts relate to the alphabet or blogging through the alphabet in some way. Evergreen content (past posts that relate) is also welcome. 
6. The link-up will be available for one week for each letter. 
7. Last of all, have fun. If you can’t join for one week, don’t stress. Just join next time, and enjoy!