When the National Centre For The Written Word (known as The Word) asked us to come and run a workshop with LEGO bricks for visitors over a school half term, it didn’t take much persuading!
I love museums and books, and the building itself is stunning, with a lovely view of the shipping passing up and down the River Tyne, which all made for a fantastic day of LEGO bridge building.
Based in South Shields on the North East of England’s rugged (ie, cold but beautiful) coast line, I ran a day long challenge with LEGO bricks for pre-booked visitors.
The challenge for visitors was to build the longest-spanning bridge from the limited LEGO elements provided; some visitors were there for hours refining their bridge designs to get that extra half a centimetre added; other visitors entered their first attempt. A 9 year old won the longest bridge competition with a whopping 137cm; a record that I still haven’t seen beaten to this day, even by older age groups.
We’d budgeted to provide 2 prizes (LEGO sets, of course!) for the day; one of the longest-spanning bridge built during the day, and one for the most creative bridge design we saw during the sessions.
Perhaps not surprisingly as I am a bit of a book worm, I do quite a few workshops in libraries with LEGO bricks, from longer workshop sessions to drop-in-and-play days. Libraries are so much more than books these days; they’re a centre of their local community and provide a lot more than something to read. Half term provided the perfect opportunity for a workshop to attract families from around the area in to the library.
And no – we didn’t get shushed once during our time in the workshops there!
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