Build my community

• Make sure that you've visited www.LEGOeducation/start and watched the My XL World onboarding videos.
• Watch the video in the top right corner of this page to get an overview of this lesson.
• Select the inspiration cards you'll need for the lesson.
• Set up a designated space in your classroom that will allow the children to easily build and role-play with their models.

Show the children the Rainbow Town poster, and read this short story aloud.

Welcome to Rainbow Town. Rainbow Town is a fun and happy place to play and learn. Everything is colorful in Rainbow Town.
Yasmin, Xavier, Wei, and Zoe are four friends who live in Rainbow Town. They like to play together. They're also friends with two grown-ups.
One is named Victor, and the other is called Uma. They all love to play and learn in Rainbow Town. And they're excited to play and learn with you!
Meet the friends!
Victor is a firefighter. He works at the fire station. Victor makes sure that everybody is safe.
Uma is a dentist. She makes sure that everyone in Rainbow Town has healthy teeth.
This is Zoe. Dragons are her favorite animal. She loves popcorn. Zoe’s favorite color is red. She wants to be a circus performer when she grows up.
This is Xavier. Bears are his favorite animal, and he carries his own bear everywhere he goes. He likes ice cream. His favorite color is green (just like his hat). He wants to drive a train when he grows up.
This is Wei! Horses are his favorite animal. He really likes pizza. His favorite color is blue. He wants to be a farmer and take care of farm animals when he grows up.
This is Yasmin. Birds are her favorite animal. She likes to eat pancakes. Her favorite color is pink. She wants to open her own bakery in Rainbow Town when she grows up.

Facilitate a quick discussion about the children's community. Ask questions, like:

• Do you live in a house or an apartment? Can you describe what it looks like?
• Where do you usually go to play in your local town?

Tell the children that they're going to build Rainbow Town!
Have them work in pairs, with each pair building one or two buildings.
They can use their imaginations to create a new model or use the inspiration cards for guidance.
Once everyone has finished building, arrange the models to create Rainbow Town.

Gather the children together and ask them to invite the LEGO^® DUPLO^® figures to visit Rainbow Town.
Ask the children to think about what they've built.
Facilitate a discussion by asking guiding questions, like:

• What did you build? Why did you choose to build that?
• What's your building used fo**r?
• Can you describe some places or things a town should have?

Talk with the children the things that are missing from Rainbow Town (e.g., trees, bridges, or other buildings).
Encourage the children to build a favorite place for each of the friends.
Ask guiding questions, like these, to support the children’s building:

• Where's Wei’s favorite place to play?
• Where's Zoe’s favorite place to eat?
• Where does Victor work?

Evaluate the children’s skills development by observing if they’re:

• Becoming more familiar with the community in which they live
• Adding their own ideas to creative projects and coming up with their own ideas during play
• Expressing ideas verbally and describing familiar people, places, things, and events

Simplify this lesson by:

• Assigning each pair of children one model to build
• Running the lesson with a smaller group (i.e., 3-4 children) and providing more support with building
  Increase the difficulty by:
• Encouraging the children to create a town that's similar to where they live

LANGUAGE ARTS EXTENSION
Option 1:
Have the children make street signs for Rainbow Town.
Option 2:
Ask the children to try using directional words to explain how to get from one place to another in Rainbow Town.

MATH EXTENSION
Option 1:
Have the children use LEGO^® DUPLO^® bricks to measure the height of each building and see which one is the tallest, and which is the shortest.
Option 2:
Ask the children to place the six friends at their favorite places in Rainbow Town. Have them use LEGO^® DUPLO^® bricks to measure the distance between the figures.
Option 3:
Facilitate a discussion about which of Rainbow Town's buildings are close to each other and which ones are far away from each other.