SPIKE Essential Brings Hands-on STEAM Learning to Grades 1–5

LEGO Education has pulled the wraps off a new component in its LEGO Learning System, Spike Essential.

According to LEGO Education: "SPIKE Essential offers playful learning experiences in which students solve problems through storytelling. The cross-curricular STEAM solution includes familiar LEGO building elements, four new LEGO Minifigures with different characteristics and personalities that are relatable to students, and standards-aligned learning units using everyday themes. The characters and stories not only engage students in STEAM learning, but also foster social-emotional skills. With 50 combined hours of educational content, SPIKE Essential combines age-appropriate icon- and word-based block coding with simple hardware — including an intelligent Hub, motors, a Light Matrix, and a Color Sensor — to bring STEAM concepts to life with the LEGO Education SPIKE App."

Designed for students in grades 1–5, Spike Essential includes 449 LEGO bricks and five hardware components. On the education side, it includes five curriculum units that each offer six to 10 hours of "educational content and 30+ minutes of language arts and math extensions for each lesson." Each one also offers seven or eight lessons, each one 45 minutes long.

SPIKE Essential is available for preorder now for $274.95 per set and is expected to ship in the fall. Each set is designed for one or two students. Further information can be found on LEGO Education's site.

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


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