Lights, Camera, Action! Get ready to embark on an exciting educational journey with the FIRST® LEGO® League MASTERPIECESM season!
This year's theme is all about creativity, innovation, and exploration, offering a fantastic opportunity to inspire your students like never before. Your students will dive into the world of art and engineering, blending creativity and technology to solve real-world challenges. They'll be encouraged to think critically, design imaginative solutions, and collaborate with their peers in a supportive and dynamic learning environment.
As an educator, you'll play a pivotal role in guiding your students through this captivating experience, nurturing their problem-solving skills, fostering a love for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), and helping them develop the confidence to become innovators of the future.
The FIRST LEGO League MASTERPIECE season is not just a competition; it's an opportunity for your students to explore their passions, showcase their talents, and make a positive impact on their communities. So, get ready to unleash the artist-engineers within your classroom and watch them create masterpieces that will leave a lasting legacy.
Let's inspire the next generation of creators, thinkers, and problem solvers together!
Resources for All
Introduce and Engage with Kahoot!
As you get ready for the new season of MASTERPIECE, get your students excited about the theme with our many STEAM-centered Kahoot! games. We also have a set of quizzes for each of the FIRST LEGO League divisions, which are great for understanding the different parts of the program.
FIRST LEGO League Class Pack awards are now available for purchase through Sports Awards for registered Class Pack customers. Options for purchase include ribbons, trophies, pencils, lanyards, and buttons. Customers must provide their Class Pack Account Number (found in the FIRST®Dashboard) to complete their purchase. These awards are a great way to recognize students’ achievements at their culminating Class Pack celebrations.
Nominations for Inspire the Future: Educator & School
At FIRST, recognition is not only part of our name, it's core to our ethos. In this spirit, we are proud to launch our third year of the Inspire the Future: FIRST Educators Recognition Program. NEW this year, you may nominate outstanding schools as part of the first annual Inspire the Future: FIRST School Recognition Program.
Help us celebrate the FIRST educators and schools who inspire their learning communities and advance the mission of FIRST by submitting a nomination.
FIRST Education has created free training resources on the FIRST programs for coaches, mentors, and teachers. These training courses are located within the FIRST Dashboard under the Thinkscape Learning Management System.
FIRST will be hosting several remote Professional Development sessions now through February 2024 for FIRST®LEGO® League Discover, Explore, Challenge, and FIRST®Tech Challenge. These professional development opportunities are great for new coaches and teachers.
More information can be found on our website and registration is through Eventbrite.
FIRST® LEGO® League Discover Class Pack
Brick-by-Brick, Six Bricks creates a learning continuum through play
Learning through play is a powerful educational approach, and using LEGO® Education Six Bricks is an excellent way to harness this methodology for students. These simple, colorful bricks provide a hands-on, creative platform for young learners to explore concepts like problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and critical thinking. Through play, students can experiment, collaborate, and build, all while developing essential skills that extend far beyond the classroom. LEGO Six Bricks make learning fun and engaging, allowing students to naturally absorb fundamental principles in a non-intimidating and enjoyable manner.
Check out this month's Six Bricks Activity - Hanging Around present by the IET Education out of the UK.
Embracing this season's STEAM theme, we wanted to highlight a great activity your students can do together that is not only fun but will help build some skills. Reader's theater is when you take a story, divide it into different parts, and assign each part to a child. They practice their parts and then perform the story for their audience.
Reader's theater can help students learn to read aloud, use expression, improve fluency, and help build their confidence. This is great for helping students learn to express themselves and will help prepare them for the culminating event as well as any future path they choose!
The FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge Innovation Project is an invaluable tool for fostering a range of essential skills in our students. It encourages them to analyze complex questions and real-world problems, helping them develop critical thinking abilities as they break down the challenges presented to them. Brainstorming sessions become a collaborative and creative process, where students learn to explore diverse ideas and perspectives, honing their skills in ideation and innovation.
Executing the Innovation Project involves an engaging process that encourages students to explore, create, and present innovative solutions to real-world problems.
You can begin by introducing the challenge theme and guiding students in analyzing the problem statement, setting the stage for brainstorming and collaborative idea generation. Students evaluate and refine their ideas, fostering decision-making skills to select a solution the team is excited to explore.
They then embark on prototyping, using materials like LEGO® components, and engage in the engineering design process by iterating on their creations, emphasizing resilience and adaptability. Ultimately, students present their innovations, developing communication skills and showcasing the team's solutions to a wider audience.
Throughout this journey, fostering an environment of creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking is key, ensuring that students not only acquire valuable problem-solving skills but also gain a deeper appreciation for innovation's role in addressing real-world challenges.
Check out resources from FLL Tutorials to support guiding this process in your classroom.
U.S.-based unregistered rookie teams who purchased a 2023-2024 FIRST LEGO League or FIRST®Tech Challenge Class Pack can apply for a Class Pack grant to cover some of the cost of a corresponding 2023-2024 rookie individual team.