HIGHLANDS RANCH —It started with some creative lesson planning by the school’s first-grade teachers.
Now, thanks to support from the and Lego’s , Highlands Ranch’s is using the colorful, plastic, interlocking bricks to spark creativity and hands-on learning across subjects and grade levels.
Coyote Creek is a school of 385 students in southwest Highlands Ranch. Last school year, first-grade teachers there, with the help of a $1,000 grant, created a six-week using off-the-shelf Legos to teach math, sorting and other skills.
Principal Gigi Whalen said she was so impressed with how kids responded, she invited Douglas County Schools to observe some of the lessons in action. Soon after, the district awarded a $17,000 grant to Coyote Creek and connected Whalen and her staff with Lego Education, the learning-focused arm of the iconic toy maker.
Since the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, teachers at every grade level of the K-6 school have had access to a variety of educational Lego kits, ranging from the simple ” ” builder kits that help younger students with problem solving, to the more advanced engineering and computer programming-focused ” ” kits.
“The great thing about this tool is it is very open-ended. Teachers can apply it to so many things,” Whalen said. “And the kids love it.”
In Holly Lehr’s sixth-grade classroom, students used “StoryStarter” kits to explore the elements of mystery writing. The students are reading a young adult mystery novel, and Lehr assigned them short writing assignments analyzing literary elements that make up mystery writing. Lego models provided the starting point.
“They need to be able to write to express, but the formations of ideas needs to happen first,” Lehr said. “For kids who get writer’s block, this really helps. It engages all of my learners and allows them to express their creativity.”
Eleven-year-old Lacey Beldon is reading Blue Balliett’s “Chasing Vermeer,” which involves suspicious letters being left on doorsteps in the middle of the night. Lacey built a model of people collecting the letters off their front stoops, adding a man in black hiding just around the corner from them to embody the menace of the mystery mailman.
“For me, I had no idea who might have done it, so I just created a mystery character here,” she said.
“I told her to put an ax in his hand, but whatever,” Lacey’s friend, Jillian Fettig, added, as she worked on her own model.
Classmate Sydney Haworth, also 11, said Lego lessons help her come up with better writing plans.
“You want to be actively engaged, and when we have a Lego build, it really sparks my imagination,” she said.
Lego Education consultant Layne Rainey has worked closely with Coyote Creek, providing training sessions for teachers and even bringing an education symposium to the school last month. He said Lego Education is a curriculum company that designs kits specifically for subject areas. The company has a , as well as other Douglas County district .
“It’s really just providing a real-world, applied way to get students’ hands on something so they can gain a deeper understanding of more abstract concepts they are learning in math and science, for example,” he said.
Legos aren’t used every day at Coyote Creek; Lehr said she uses kits once or twice a month. But based on early results, Principal Whalen said she is very pleased with how students are reacting to the lessons and hopes their use will boost Coyote Creek’s enrollment in a district that encourages school choice.
“This is the kind of hands-on, innovative learning the district is looking for,” Whalen said. “We’re hoping this program attracts people from outside our neighborhood.”
Joe Rubino: 303-954-2953 or jrubino@denverpost.com
