Loads of Laundry

• This lesson uses the LEGO^® Education Personal Learning Kit Essential. If you don't have access to this kit, you can use found materials or other LEGO bricks.
• In this lesson, your students will use LEGO bricks to build a laundry helper. Then, they'll create, test, and iterate using more bricks to complete it.
• A visual Lesson Presentation is provided in the Additional Resources section of this lesson. Use this presentation to pace your lesson and guide your students through each of the 5Es.

• Review the visual Lesson Presentation provided in the Additional Resources section
• Consider the best time to teach this lesson. Here are some suggestions:
  • As an introductory lesson to kick off the Quirky Creations: Engineering Cool School Hacks unit.
  • Before or after the High-Tech Playground or Winning Goal lesson to hone your students' use of the design engineering process
  • Before the Your School Creation lesson to help lay the foundation for the open-ended project
• Distribute the Personal Learning Kits in accordance with your school’s distribution policy.

• Facilitate a quick discussion with your students about how to communicate their ideas and provide feedback.
• Talk about how they can provide constructive feedback about something that they like or don't like.
• Here's a sample conversation starter to spark inspiration:
  • Let’s pretend you’ve met the inventor of a new device that can clean any room. The inventor asks you what you think of their invention. You want to tell them things that would be helpful.
  • What are some of the things you could say? How can you give specific examples of what you liked or didn’t like?
  • It’s important to be clear when giving feedback. You can use sentences like these:
    • I’m really impressed with…
    • I’d like to know more about…
    • I had a different idea…
• Let’s pretend the other way around. Pretend you’re the inventor of the room cleaner, and you want feedback from someone who's just tried it for the first time. What types of questions do you think you should ask?
  • You could ask questions like these:
    • What do you think about…?
    • How do you think I could improve my invention?
    • Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?
• Introduce your students to the story’s main character, Leo, and follow along in the Visual Presentation slide deck as you read the following story.
  • SLIDE 3
    - Leo is overwhelmed. He has so much dirty laundry in his room!
  • SLIDE 4
    - Leo is overwhelmed. He has so much dirty laundry in his room!
  • SLIDE 5
    - Build a laundry helper for Leo.

• Ask your students to open their Personal Learning Kits and explore the bricks.
• There aren't any building instructions for this lesson. Instead, your students should use the Inspiration Images to get them thinking. Point out that they aren't limited to replicating these ideas.
• Allow your students some time to create their laundry helpers using the bricks available to them.

• Once your students have finished building, have them take turns sharing their models with the class.
• Model effective feedback for your students, and encourage them to give feedback to their peers.
• Remind them to use eye contact and a friendly tone of voice, to focus on specific examples when giving feedback, and to reflect on how they can improve their models based on the feedback they receive.
• Encourage your students to use statements like these when giving
  feedback:
  • I’m really impressed with…
  • I’d like to know more about…
  • I had the same idea…
  • I had a different idea…
  • I suggest…

-Ask your students to brainstorm how they'd improve or modify their laundry helpers based on the feedback they've received.
- What would you like to add to your laundry helper?
- What would change about your laundry helper?
- What would take away?
- What would you test to determine if your solution works?

• Ask your students to raise a colored brick to self-evaluate their confidence level.
• Red brick: I think I can give and receive feedback with my friends.
• Yellow brick: I can give and receive feedback with my friends.
• Green brick: I can give and receive feedback with my friends, and I can help a friend do it too!