Lego Marble Run

A fun way to explore the concepts of forwards / backwards and left / right whilst also working on the notion of speed and control.

Lego marble run.

What you need:

- Lego base board

- Lego blocks

- marbles (alternatively any small ball like a bouncy ball would also work)

The set up (and an excited boy).

How it works:

I used a selection of Lego blocks to build a run that the marbles had to follow. I also added a little 'finish house' at the end once the marbles had passed through the 'finisher's tunnel'. I told my son that the aim was to get all the marbles into the 'finish house' but didn't instruct him on how to achieve this. My son's natural instinct was to flick and push the marbles through the run at first.

Flicking a marble through the run.

Pushing a marble towards the 'finish house'.

Throughout the process I asked my son questions regarding the direction of the marble. We used key vocabulary such as forwards / backwards, left / right, fast / slow and move / stop.

Once my son had experimented how to best get the marbles through the run I showed him the concept of tilting the board to make the marbles move (see first picture in blog). He found this tricky at first and got a little frustrated as the marble was much harder to control this way. After some help, however, he got the hang of it and enjoyed the challenge.

If you have older children it could be fun to get them involved in the building of the marble run.