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Thursday, February 02, 2012

Lego Learning

In this household, we love our Lego. Or, more accurately, the husband and the kids love their Lego, and I... love not accidentally stepping on any. Because, you know, OUCH.

But sometimes, having a lot of Lego can come in quite handy.

Here are two bible stories that we were able to bring to life with our Lego blocks and have a lot of fun learning too:

1. Joshua & the Walls of Jericho

This story is fairly straight-forward: God commanded the Israelites to march around the walled city of Jericho once a day for 6 days, with the priests blowing their horns. Then after marching around the city 7 times on the 7th day, Joshua commanded the people to SHOUT... and the walls came tumbling down.

It should be pretty obvious what we did!

Building the wall was surprisingly difficult, no thanks to Noey's requirements -- "I want to put some flowers to make it look nice" and "I want a window!". I also wanted to make it tall so that the falling down would, well, be more impressive. When we finally got it to stand, we pranced around it, I tooted a horn made from a rolled up piece of paper, and we shouted! And then we toppled the wall down. I admit, I had fun too.


And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."
~ Joshua 6:15, 20


2. Feeding the Five Thousand

It was DD's idea to use his many many (many) Lego figurines to illustrate this parable. We had previously read this parable -- where Jesus took just the lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish of one little boy and fed the multitude -- to Noey before but it was hard for him to grasp the concept of five thousand people.

We don't have five thousand lego figurines. At least, I sincerely hope not! But we have enough DD took out enough from his stash to make the point. He even managed to rustle up 2 lego fish!


And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.
~ Matthew 14:19-21

So yes, Lego are learning toys, in more ways than probably intended.

(And no, my dear husband, that does NOT mean that you ought to buy more!)

10 comments:

  1. olimomok2/2/12 09:55

    Wah that's a lot of Lego people!!!!!! Sean loves his Lego too though our collection is nowhere as big as yours!

    PS. Incidentally, one of his favourite pieces is the red plane you got for him for his first birthday - there are always at least 6 Lego folks sitting on it at any one time ;)

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  2. Wow!! so many figures! and the FISH! so impressed. i never even knew lego fish existed. :)

    great job on using them to make the bible stories come to life!

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  3. So fun and so useful for the story telling! We have 2 huge boxes of lego and very random pcs of built up stuff. and alot of wheels! Zzzz.

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  4. Woah. I wasn't expecting a wall that tall nor that many people. D's collection really makes my old one look paltry. *must not show J and K!*

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  5. @olimomok yay, i'm glad he likes the plane! it was Noey's favourite for a long time too. we used about 50 mini figs that time, and i don't know that it's scratching the surface of what DD has!

    @lynklee i know right? after he showed me the fish, i was half expecting him to bring out loaves of bread as well.

    @lilsnooze i guess the good thing about lego is that you're only limited by your imagination! only, i seem to only know how to build houses and structures like that. hah.

    @Ruth hah, maybe they can come over to play sometime :) we have too much lego really!

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  6. There's this series of books where a guy used Lego to make biblical scenes. Think if you do a search on amazon, you should be able to find it. I chanced upon a copy at Waterstones when I was living in the UK several years back. Sounds like a book your family would love.

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  7. Great way to learn about the Bible Stories through play :) No wonder it's great for cultivating imagination in kids.

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  8. @Chen Chen Hi there! Thanks for dropping me a note! Do you mean The Brick Testament or something like it? I love that site! I'd forgotten about it till you mentioned it. It would indeed be a good place to mine for ideas -- thanks!

    @Susan And cultivating imagination in adults too! Haha.

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  9. That's so lovely! You know, I saw a "lego" lunchbox the other day and actually thought of you guys ;)

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  10. Yes, Brick Testament! That's the book. Love the site too! =)

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