Tomorrow evening I will be leading my son’s Cub Scout den in a LEGO mosaic building activity.  This project will meet one of the requirements for the Artist merit badge - and it provides me an opportunity to try out what I’m planning for the Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum workshop next month.  Here is a mosaic I made to use as a sample.

Each boy will be given a blank base plate 24 studs square (one quarter of an extra large base plate) to fill up with bricks.  The base plates cut easily with a good scissors.  I’m hoping this is a good size for 45-60 minutes of building time.

I will encourage them to create anything they want and offer some suggestions (e.g. collage, geometric or abstract designs, one large picture, letters, numbers, etc.)  I can’t wait to see what they create!

See below for details on the meaning of my collage mosaic and for pictures of the mosaics the kids made…

Here’s what I put on my collage mosaic:

• Elmo (my daughter Abby loves him)
• Pacman (all my kids and I like to play video games)
• Cat (we have three of them)
• Football (my boys and I love to watch and play)
• Fish (we enjoy fishing in the summer time)
• Piano Keys (my daughter Maddie plays)
• Binary Digits (I am a software engineer)
• Dave (my name) with a shark tooth in place of the V (we love to beach comb for them at Fernandina Beach, Florida)
• Soccer ball (my son Mathew plays)
• Red heart (symbol of my love for my wife and kids)

[Updated 05/13/08:  Here are the excellent mosaics the kids did!]

The kids had fun building and did a great job. I’m anxious to do this again next month with a larger group at the museum.