SPIKE™ Essential

The Most Amazing Amusement Park

It is time to create your very own amusement park ride!

45-90 min.
Beginner
Years 1-2
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Prepare

NOTE: This lesson will extend over two 45-minute class sessions.

  • Review the Most Amazing Amusement Park lesson in the LEGO® Education SPIKE App.
  • Consider the abilities and backgrounds of all your pupils. Differentiate the lesson to make it accessible to everyone. Please refer to the Differentiation section below for suggestions on how to do this.
  • If time permits, plan and facilitate the language arts extension. Please refer to the Extension section below for further information.

PART A (45 Minutes)

Engage

(Whole Class, 10 Minutes)

  • Facilitate a quick discussion about designing something new.
    • Talk with your pupils about what they think is missing from the amusement park that Sofie, Maria, Daniel and Leo have been visiting.
    • Ask questions like these: What would be a fun ride for the team to try? How could we brainstorm a new ride for the team?
  • Introduce your pupils to the team and the challenge: brainstorming a new ride for the amusement park.
  • Distribute a brick set, any additional brainstorming materials, and a device to each group.

Explore

(Small Groups, 25 Minutes)

  • Have your pupils use the LEGO® Education SPIKE App to guide them through their first challenge:
    • Create a new ride for the amusement park. Use at least one motor or sensor (i.e. Colour Sensor or Light).
  • Your pupils can brainstorm using the LEGO bricks supplemented with additional materials. Encourage them to think of multiple solutions.

Explain

(Whole Class, 10 Minutes)

  • Facilitate a sharing session in which your pupils present their initial ideas and provide feedback and suggestions to their peers.

PART B (45 Minutes)

Elaborate

(Small Groups, 30 Minutes)

  • Have your pupils build, program, and test the prototypes and ideas that they came up with during the brainstorming session in Part A of this lesson.
  • Remind them to use at least one motor or sensor.
  • Encourage them to test and refine their models and programs over 2-3 iterations.
  • You can find coding and building help in the Tips section below.

Evaluate

(Whole Class, 15 Minutes)

  • Ask guiding questions to encourage your pupils to ‘think aloud’ and explain their thought processes and reasoning in the decisions they have made while building and programming their models.
  • Have your pupils tidy up their workstations.

Observation Checklist

  • Measure your pupils’ proficiency in applying their engineering design skills to completing the given task.
  • Establish a scale that suits your needs. For example:
    1. Requires additional support
    2. Can work independently
    3. Can teach others

Self-Assessment
Have each pupil choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.
- Yellow: I think that I can design, build, and program a solution.
- Blue: I can design, build, and program a solution.
- Green: I can design, build, and program a solution, and I can also help a friend to do it.

Peer Feedback

  • In their small groups, have your pupils discuss their experiences working together.
  • Encourage them to use statements like these:
    • I liked it when you…
    • I would like to hear more about how you…

Tips

Coding Tips

  • There are no coding instructions or Inspiration Coding Blocks for this lesson.
    • Encourage your pupils to experiment and find their own solutions.

Model Tip

  • There are no building instructions or Inspiration Images for this lesson.
    • Encourage your pupils to create their own models.
    • If they require further guidance, refer them to the building instructions for the previous lessons in this unit.
  • There is no right or wrong model for this lesson.
    • Your pupils can create entirely new models, find inspiration in the models from the previous lessons or simply recreate models from earlier lessons.

Differentiation

Simplify this lesson by:

  • Working together as a class to brainstorm new ideas for the amusement park
  • Giving your pupils the building instructions from previous lessons to use as inspiration for their new rides

Increase the difficulty by:

  • Using two motors or sensors
  • Creating two unique programs to make the ride move in two different ways

Extension

  • Have your pupils write a description of their amusement park rides, explaining why they are fun and exciting.

If facilitated, this will extend beyond the 90-minute lesson.

Language Arts: ACELA1787
Explore different ways of expressing emotions, including verbal, visual, body language and facial expressions

Teacher Support

The pupils will:

  • Apply their engineering design skills to solve a problem
  • Practise helping a story character
  • Describe key ideas or details from a text

(one for every two pupils)

  • LEGO® Education SPIKE Essential Set
  • Device with the LEGO® Education SPIKE App installed
  • OPTIONAL: Additional materials for brainstorming (e.g. notebook paper, science notebook, etc.)

Design and Technologies
ACTDEK001
Identify how people design and produce familiar products, services and environments and consider sustainability to meet personal and local community needs.

Digital Technologies
ACTDIP003
Collect, explore, and sort data, and use digital systems to present the data creatively.

English Language
ACELA1460
Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose, context and cultural background.

Pupil Material

Student Worksheet

Download, view or share as an online HTML page or a printable PDF.