Archive for the ‘Homeschooling’ Category

LEGO Civil War

Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

lego-civil-war-hospital

When you study the Civil War, you can re-create different scenes with LEGO. One of the best ways to use LEGO in studying the Civil War is to use the LEGO people as soldiers to re-enact the battles. If you join many green LEGO bases together, you could even make the terrain–the rivers, mountains, valleys, and trees–to make the battles look more authentic.

Ideas for LEGO Civil War Scenes

Besides the obvious battle strategies and tactics for the Civil War, you can also re-create the following scenes:

  • Create a LEGO Civil War hospital. Put a red cross into a white wall as you build the hospital, and make sure you have plenty of beds where soldiers have amputated legs and arms. Civil War soldiers notoriously had body parts amputated needlessly because of lack of hygiene.
  • Build a Civil War camp with white tents and campfires and soldiers milling about.
  • Re-enact the Underground Railroad in LEGO. Have LEGO men trying to escape from cruel slave masters and flee to Canada with the help of friendly homes along the way.
  • Sew a miniature hoop skirt for a LEGO person. Add a parasol by using a small paper umbrella from a party supply store.

lego-civil-war-battle

In these ways, you can bring to life this time period and internalize the Civil War while having fun with LEGOs!

Colossians Activities for Kids

Monday, June 15th, 2015

put-on-Christ

Here are some fun Colossians activities you can do with your kids to internalize this book of the Bible. You will need card stock paper in various colors, string, a hole punch, scissors, and glue. You will also need a computer with a printer so that you can print out various words.

Are you ready?

Colossians Activity #1: Blindfold

Put a blindfold on a child and have him walk around in darkness. How did it feel? Ask: Did you bump into things? Were you disoriented? This is what happens when we walk in sin. It leads us astray and ends up hurting us. When you take off the blindfold, your eyes are full of light, and you can see where you are going. There is safety and peace when you walk in the light.

Colossians Activity #2: Deeds of the Flesh

Print out the deeds of the flesh, which include anger, malice, slander, abusive speech, and lying. Print them in bold letters from your computer, leaving plenty of space around each word so that you can cut them out and paste them to a piece of black card stock paper.

Punch two holes in the top of the paper, and tie string through each hole, making sure to leave enough space for a child’s head. The child can now wear the deeds of the flesh around his neck (see above illustration).

Now you can make another card stock sign of love. Cut out a heart from red card stock paper, and print out “love” from your computer. Glue the label to the heart. Hole punch two holes on the top of the heart, and the child can put off the deeds of the flesh and put on love.

love

You can also put on Christ after taking off the deeds of the flesh. Use your creativity to make a sign representing Christ. We used a yellow cross glued to black card stock paper. Once again, you will need to punch two holes and tie string to the holes so that the child can “put on Christ.”

Explain what it means to put on Christ. This means we are to yield to Christ and manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our lives rather than the deeds of the flesh.

Colossians Activity #3: Sing Hymns

We are to encourage each other with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, so go ahead and obey the verse by taking out some hymn books and singing your favorite hymns.

Colossians Activity #4: Cancelled Debt

Print out a sheet of paper with the title “Debt.” You can show negative money numbers listed on the paper. With a pen, mark “Cancelled” over the debt. You could also print the word “Cancelled” on another sheet of paper and glue it over the debt. I outlined the word “Cancelled” with black marker.

debt-cancelled

Talk about how our debts (our sins against God) have been nailed to the cross and cancelled because of what Christ did for us. You could have kids mention specific sins, and write “Cancelled” in another colored marker over those sins to represent that the sins are now gone because they have been forgiven if we have repented of them.

If you enjoyed these Colossians Activities for Kids, you will love the huge Bible section inside the Unit Study Treasure Vault!

LEGO Portraits

Monday, May 11th, 2015

lego-portraits

My son made some LEGO portraits of our family! He started with his dad. My husband has dark hair, a beard, and green eyes. So my son started with a green LEGO base, and he looked at the shape of my husband’s face. As you can see, the receding hairline is correctly portrayed by the white LEGOs for the face. Because brown LEGOs are scarce, my son used black LEGOs for the hair.

family-picture

Next he made his mother. Just now I noticed that he made me with blue eyes instead of green. Oh, well. He got the red hair right, and you can definitely tell that the LEGO portrait is me. As you can tell in each portrait, the nose is a gray upside-down “T” to contrast against the white skin of the face.

I noticed that the faces of the children are not as elongated as the faces of the parents. The younger the children, the more rounded the faces. My oldest son has dark hair and green eyes, with a light moustache if he forgets to shave. Yes, my 14-year-old has a slight moustache.

My second son has lighter hair. When he was younger, it was blonde, which is represented by yellow. Everyone has a red smiley face because we’re all happy. That’s nice.

My third son parts his hair on the side, so you can see that the hair is a different hairstyle, which changes the way the LEGOs are arranged at the top of the forehead.

My daughter is blonde with blue eyes and has longer hair, which is shown at the bottom of the face. My son chose to give us all blue shirts.

It’s helpful if you can either look at the person while making the LEGO portrait, or look at a picture of the person so you can correctly shape all the colors of the LEGOs to correspond to what the person really looks like. I hope you enjoyed our LEGO portraits. Why not make some of your family?

 

 

LEGO States

Monday, May 4th, 2015

LEGO-statesIf you are studying the geography of the United States, why not make some LEGO states? All you need is a couple of green bases and a bucket of red LEGO’s.

Look at the shape of each state before you begin outlining the state. You can use an atlas, a map online, or a puzzle piece. We have a wooden puzzle of the United States, and my son used the shape of the puzzle piece to create the outline for the state.

Once you have outlined the state with red LEGO’s on the green bases, you will want to fill in the rest of the state. This part is super easy and can even be done by preschoolers who want to help. Make sure you have added any details.

Here is a LEGO model of Connecticut:

LEGO-connecticutHere is a LEGO model of Oklahoma:

lego-oklahoma

You can also add mountain ranges for the states by using a second row of red LEGO’s outlining the mountain ranges. You can even get creative and add other sightseeing places with other colors of LEGO’s to add interest!

If you enjoyed this post on LEGO states, you will love the workshop: Living Geography: Travel the World from your Living Room.