Learning With The Brick

We have been playing er I mean learning with Lego MBA for this entire school year.  Think Legos are just a toy? Well, let me set you straight! There is a whole lot you can do with this little plastic brick.

Yahoo! Thats awesome! HOLD THE PHONE….she said what????? She said “We have been learning with Lego MBA this entire school year!”

Yep!  Ya heard right!  We have been using various Lego products to enhance our learning.  One really special product we included this school year was Lego MBA.



Legos have so many different products that it is almost mind boggling to wade through it all.  But don’t let it fool you just because it is on the toy isle.  No matter which Lego product you choose, each project comes with lots of construction bricks of different sizes, shapes, colors, and some have special features and mini figures.  And each project comes with blue prints. 

What can be more educational than being given a set of instructions and learning to follow it to recreate the project?  This is the basic process and understanding needed to replicate recipes, science experiments, learn spelling, take tests, and numerous other educational projects we give to kids. 

And then there is the aspect of being creative, just taking a bunch of parts and creating something amazing with them using your own ideas.  Again, another method we want kids to learn and we use this in engineering, design, inventions, entrepreneurship, writing stories, and so much more. 

Legos can actually help us teach these methods in a fun way and our kids will actually get better at this process and I believe will do better in life in the long run too. 

When my oldest son was turning 11, he asked if we could buy him the Lego MBA program for his birthday.  I do have some moral objections to some of the Lego products. My main objection to some of the Lego products is that I don’t want my kids to play with items that deal with sorcery and witchcraft.  So I like to look at things the kids want and pray about it before proceeding. 

After checking into it, Lego MBA seemed like it was a wholesome product and would be good for all the kids to learn.  We initially invested in the program for two of our kids, the 11 year old and the 9 year old. 

When the product started arriving, we were so impressed that we told several of our homeschool friends about it and started a club for everyone who wanted to join and do the Lego MBA with us.  Last July, we turned our club into the Lego and Robotics Academy 4H Club for kids ages 7-18.  You can read stories about our club here.

This January, my third son turned 7, and officially joined our 4H club.  He was overjoyed to finally be a member and get his very own Lego MBA kit.  Yes it is true, we now have three sons working through the Lego MBA program.



Lego MBA

Lego MBA stands for Lego Master Builder Academy.  It is a building program designed to help you understand the process of design and engineering with Legos. 

Lego MBA currently has two levels and includes a total of 6 kits.  Level 1 has 3 kits and Level 2 has 3 kits.  They are developing a Level 3 for this coming year, but we don’t have any details on it yet.

Lego MBA is available for sale in two parts from the Lego website.  You can purchase Level 1 kit 1 for $29 and then purchase the remaining products as a one time subscription which includes Level 1 kits 2-3 and Level 2 kits 4-6 for $69. 

This is how it works when you buy both parts.  Lego immediately mails kit 1 to you, then a month later they mail kit 2, then every other month they mail one of the remaining kits.  Altogether it takes about 10 months to complete the program.  If you purchase both parts together, the cost is $99 plus shipping.

Each kit comes with a book of curriculum and a building pack of bricks and special parts, and mini figure accessories. Each level also comes with a mini-figure.  Kit 1 comes with a special box and sorting tray that holds all the curriculum and parts.  Each time a new kit arrives, my kids pull out their box and add the new book and parts to it.  It is a handy place to store everything.

Each kit teaches new techniques in design and engineering. There are new vocabulary words and new techniques to practice.  There is also an online part of the program where kids complete a to-do list and receive a download printable diploma at the end of mastering each kit and the to-do list. 

Each kit builds three models and two challenge models. So that is about 30 models(18 teaching models learning techniques + 12 teaching creativity using the techniques) your child learns to build by the end of the program.

Check out this video about Lego MBA that I found on You Tube.



So I got this idea that maybe you would like to follow along and see the projects the kids make in their Lego MBA studies.  I don’t know why I didn’t think to publish these stories before.  I take pictures constantly of all the kids are doing.  Life just seems to have a way of happening and lots of my ideas and stories get set on the back burner.  I wish I had set up a plan to do this program with our readers, and your kids could have joined with us online as my boys built and learned with each kit.  But, I still think it is worth posting the stories and doing the kits again.   The 11 and 9 year olds are currently in kit 5 and the 7 year old is in kit 2 as I write this post.  But for the sake of writing these posts we will start again at the beginning.

I’ll post the stories, and link them here on this master list.  So join us won’t you?

Lego MBA
Level 1 kit 1
Level 1 kit 2
Level 1 kit 3  

Level 2 kit 4
Level 2 kit 5
Level 2 kit 6