Every year, there comes a time when I get an influx of teachers who let me know that my students are having trouble working in groups. It usually comes around the time kids start book clubs. Who can blame them? Working with other people is hard work-we as adults don’t even have it mastered, right?

I always pull out my Legos, and do this group activity with my kids. There have been studies showing its effectiveness at improving the social skills of children with Autism, but I truely think it is so useful for all children to explore working together and group rules. (See here and here.)

I do an activity based off of the therapy used in the above studies. All you really need to do this is a box of Legos and some paper. I use it so often though, that I’ve created something reusable.

Essentially-students are each assigned a “job” and work together to create a Lego structure. You can really use any type of blocks here, but I’ve always used Legos. They try to stay withing their jobs as they work, and then reflect how it went at then end!

I start off by telling students that we are going to work together to build something with Legos and that they are each going to have a job in the building. I explain each of the roles; Supplier, Builder, Architect and Director. If I’m doing this with 3 students, I take away the Director role, and if I only have 2 students, I assume one of the roles.

I first explain all of the roles, and let students know that they will get a chance to switch roles. I also prompt them to think about 3 things throughout: how the group works together, what they do well in their role, and what they can improve. Then, I randomly assign each student a role, and review their jobs with them again.

Then, we play! I facilitate for about 5 minutes, each student in their respective role. I really try to prompt them to stick to their job. After 5 minutes, we stop, and reflect. I like to use these reflection sheets to help me keep track of who had each role.

Then, we switch roles and try it again! I love this for reflecting at the end how it relates to working with other children in groups, and how it’s difficult to balance our own ideas with what the rest of the group wants. Do you use Legos to teach group work skills? Give it a try!

Here is the link for my TPT product if you are interested!