A Unique local landmark

• 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 inspiration cards of the amusement park, pagoda, and apartments and read this short story aloud.

Today, Victor asked Wei, Xavier, Yasmin, and Zoe if they could find a building or statue to represent Rainbow Town as a landmark. They talked about it a lot because they have very different ideas about what it should be. Wei thinks it should be the Rainbow Apartments because they’re so colorful and nice. Zoe says it should be the castle in the amusement park because you can see the whole town from there. And Xavier and Yasmin think it should be the pagoda in the park because they always have festivals there.

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 a landmark for their towns.
Have them work in pairs to build one or two things that remind them that they're close to home.
They can use their imaginations to create new models or use the examples below for guidance.
Once everyone has finished building, arrange the models in one place so the children can see what others have made.

Gather the children together. Ask them to take turns presenting their models, and explaining why they chose to build that model.
Ask the children to think about what they've built and facilitate a discussion by asking guiding questions, like:

• Where in your town is it located?
• Are there other things that remind you that you're close to home or your neighborhood?

Explain that all states/provinces have landmarks.
Ask the children if they can name the landmark of their state/province.
Encourage the children to build the landmark and present it to the class.
If they're having difficulty, ask them to think about tall buildings, bridges, big mountains, lakes, or statues.

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

• Learning about the physical characteristics of their local environment as a foundation for learning geography
• Learning about their hometown, state/province, and country as a foundation for learning about geography, history, and social studies.
• 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 a new landmark for Rainbow Town

LANGUAGE ARTS EXTENSION
Ask the children to draw and then build a new landmark for their town. Once they've finished building, have them give it a name, and explain to their classmates why they'd like it to be the new landmark.