The title of this post is meant quite literally; to build your child’s science and engineering skills, help them… Build! For a long time, Travis has enjoyed playing with Lego figures, but preferred to leave the actual building to me. I’ve been thrilled then to see a difference in his Lego play lately, insisting he do each step himself and learning to read and follow the diagrams in each instruction booklet.

Yet while there’s nothing wrong with building a Lego exactly according to plan, you can give things a STEM twist by building off-book. I set out a bunch of Travis’s Lego pieces and challenged him to make a bridge. How wide could he make it go?

At first he wanted it to span from a stool to a side table, but he quickly realized that the distance was too great.

Dialing back expectations, he moved them closer together an next puzzled out how to build up supports, then started laying the longest pieces across the gap. Black rectangles helped piece it all together.

We encountered a glitch when the table was lower than the stool. Thinking quickly, I helped him build up a base for extra height on that end. Success!

He was so proud of this construction, and continued to build a structure around the base of the bridge. When it tumbled to the ground at one point, I was so proud that he didn’t grow frustrated and used it as a chance for improvements.

Any Lego engineering challenge like this will work those STEM skills. Consider asking your child to build the tallest tower he or she can, or seeing if a bridge or roof can support a weight like a toy ball. Happy building!