I know Jamie is only 3 years old, this may be too advanced for her. But this is not for her to make, this is only for her to realize. Realization of the possibility is sometimes what will drive her do more better things. To show her that what you see, you can recreate is already a powerful thing to me. It lessens the losers in the world that easily say: I can’t do that.

I was a Lego® child since 4, but my real big Lego® sets came in at the age of 6. All these sets are now Jamie’s. Some people say Jamie is smart, and they are judging this on how she speaks. At the age of 3 she can do interesting conversations, has nice pronunciation, and knows a bunch of stuff. But this is not what I am looking for at this moment. I want her to wonder how things work, can see symmetry, color balance and uniformity, do simple jigsaw puzzles, get to count in small numbers and get a simple concept of length units. Talking is nice, sounds smart, but even up to college, there are a lot of good talkers that know nothing. The government in any country has a lot of them.

I like Lego® since it gives you simple rules of measurement, where you measure in the unit of Lego® “dots” which are the circle heads that connect each part. Designing something, from a tree, a house, stairs, whatever, teaches simple symmetry and alignment. Sometimes you are already teaching simple math without knowing it. In centering alone, just tell Jamie, ang ganda ng gawa mo, pero igitna mo ito… and if she ask paano or she says naka gitna naman, bring in the counting of circles on both sides. Just start with that and she will learn more as time goes on. She will learn about planes of symmetry, lines and planes and 3d space without knowing that she is learning. Turning objects in her head. And when school comes… she will appreciate more the number line, the mid point, median, mean, the dot, circle and sphere, area and perimeter, union and intersection. It is just asking her to make the right things.

Anyway… we will have a good Lego® session when I get home this December. Right now, just show her these pictures, do not ask her to do it, because if you do, and she can’t, frustration comes in. And when frustrated, it really depends on the person, sometimes, the more motivated they get to do it, or some totally give up. Jamie is too young to get totally motivated to get to do it when failure arises, although I have seen my trait of having this attitude as early as 6 years old in playing video games or any game. And a common line I would hear from my dad is: And hina-hina mo naman. accompanied with a laugh since he always did better. I do not plan to do that with my children, it will depend on how I see their motivation to do better is working for them.

Famous work of some artist. Famous, but I do not know who the artist is.

The recreated artwork in Lego®

I got the pictures from DamnFunnyPictures.com.