Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn Adds “Maker Blocks” Area

The Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn recently added to its Maker Zone area with LEGOⓇ bricks. The expanded activities of the building block area were unveiled at the museum’s most recent “Member-only Late Night” event.

“A lot of Children’s Museums across the country have some sort of Lego experience,” said Adam Woodworth, the museum’s Executive Director. “These building toys promote fine motor skills, creativity, problem-solving skills, as well as lateral thinking and planning skills. The development of executive functions are key in childhood development and include such things as planning, organizing and revising those plans if something doesn’t quite work out the first time.”

The area now includes stations which allow guests to build independently or gain inspiration by following prompts such as ‘create a dinosaur’ or ‘build your favorite fruit and see if a friend can guess it’.

Additionally, guests can add on to a pre-built car base and then race their creation down the museum’s car derby. While a variety of cars have been used for the derby, the museum’s car derby was originally made for LEGOⓇ cars. The car derby times the cars that race down the track. This allows guests to experiment and discover what will make their car go faster or slower.