Lego City Helps Students Build Skills

Every kid knows that you can build just about anything with Legos®. At Chapel Hill Academy, students are building confidence, joint attention, focus, negotiation skills, and problem solving. Leveraging students’ love of these colorful building bricks, this cross-curricular project has elementary students working together to create “Lego City.”

The concept for Lego City got its start through one student’s project during “Genius Mods,” an independent study module offered to students at CHA. This spring, ten students ages 7-9 took part in the multi-week project in Maureen Dahdah’s elementary school classroom.

The project is linked to many areas of the curriculum, including math (fractions) and social studies (how government and democratic decision-making works). Students named the city “FlamEngland” – a combination of flamingo and England – to reflect their studies of Colonial America.

“Building with Legos is a multi-sensory, open-ended experience, so I was able to tailor the activity to meet the students’ unique needs. The lesson plans addressed areas of the core curriculum in a way that was fun and engaging. And because it was such a team effort, students used a toolbox of skills to build cooperation and teamwork.”
— Maureen Dahdah, CHA Teacher