Outdoor activities

• 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 inspiration card of the merry-go-round, and read this short story aloud.

This is a playground in Rainbow Town. Xavier, Wei, and Yasmin are playing on the merry-go-round. It’s their favorite outdoor activity. They left a red seat for Zoe because they know it’s her favorite color. Zoe just arrived. She's very excited to join her friends!

Facilitate a quick discussion about outdoor activities. Ask questions, like:

• What's your favorite outdoor activity?
• Can you describe how to do the activity?
• How many people can be involved?
• What are the rules?

Tell the children that they're going to build their favorite outdoor activity!
Have them work in pairs to build their favorite outdoor activities.
They can use their imaginations to create a new model or use the examples below for guidance.
Once everyone has finished building, arrange the models to make a playground.

Gather the children together and have them take turns using the LEGO^® DUPLO^® figures to show how their activity is done. Ask them to explain the rules.
Ask the children to think about what they've built.
Facilitate a discussion by asking guiding questions, like:

• Why is this your favorite outdoor activity?
• What do you need to be careful of when you're doing this activity? (Talk about potential safety issues.)

Encourage each pair of children to design a playground that includes all of their favorite outdoor activities. Have them introduce each of the activities to their LEGO^® DUPLO^® friends.

Ask guiding questions, like these, to help the children as they build:

• How many outdoor activities will your playground have?
• How many individual activities and how many group activities?
• Where will people rest?

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

• Playing with other children in small and large groups, and following classroom procedures, and game rules.
• Engaging in discussions about fairness, friendship, responsibility, authority, and differences
• Adding their own ideas to creative projects and coming up with their own ideas during play

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 design an outdoor activity for their whole class to enjoy.

LANGUAGE ARTS EXTENSION
Ask the children to draw a picture of their favorite outdoor activity. Remind them to include what the activity is, who participates in the activity, and where it takes place. When they're finished, have them describe their drawings to their partner.