Archive for the ‘Homeschooling’ Category

LEGO Ancient Egypt

Monday, March 30th, 2015

lego-ancient-egyptMy daughter constructed a LEGO Ancient Egypt, with the Nile River flowing over the hot sand overlooking a pyramid and the Sphinx. We used regular LEGO bricks, so anyone can do this.

You start with a LEGO base. Create the Nile River by collecting blue LEGOs and making the river flow from one end of the base to the other. Don’t forget to form the Nile River Delta on the north side of the base. A delta is a place where a river splits up into rivulets. You can place some palm trees along the river if you have them.

lego-egyptNext you will want to make a pyramid. We chose white LEGOs, building them up into a step-like pyramid. If you want to make three smaller pyramids, you could do that instead of making the larger one.

The Sphinx was made out of yellow LEGOs, with two thin yellow LEGOs as the legs. Two regular LEGOs form the body, with a half LEGO for the head. Simple.

lego-ancient-egypt-2Now pour sand over the whole thing, making sure to leave a little bit of green on either side of the Nile River, because the land next to the river is green compared to the desert further from the river.

If you look at the LEGO Ancient Egypt from the top, you will notice that it looks like a map. You can have your children draw a map of the scene for practice in map-making skills.

Here are some more Ancient Egypt Unit Study ideas:

The Last Supper in LEGO

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

the-last-supper-in-legoMy 11-year-old son built The Last Supper in LEGO. He started with a green base, laying a white table for the LEGO disciples. A cup (a yellow goblet) and a piece of bread (a brown round LEGO piece) lay in front of Jesus as He sat to eat His last meal before being betrayed and crucified.

My son looked at the famous paintingĀ The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, and he placed each LEGO disciple in a similar position to the painting. The LEGO Last Supper was complete in a few short minutes.

last-supper-da-vinciAn alternate way to make The Last Supper in LEGO is to start with the green base, and use plain LEGO pieces in the colors and shapes in the painting. This simplified version can be done when you have no LEGO men, or if all your LEGO men happen to be pirates. (It just wouldn’t be right to do The Last Supper with pirates. It might be good for a literature unit study of Treasure Island, though!)

last-supper-painting

This Last Supper scene is a beautiful activity to do around Easter time, when celebrating the week leading up to Christ’s death. You can read the conversation that Jesus had with His disciples, and how they sang a hymn… How He said that the bread was His body and the wine His blood that would be shed for them… How He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and sweated drops of blood… How no one even stayed awake to pray with Him… How He was alone when faced with the thought of the horror and sin of the world being placed upon Him and having the Trinity torn apart in one moment of time where the Father turned His back on the Son… My sweet Jesus endured hell that we might be set free from the bondage of sin and death! Glory be His name!

LEGO Chemistry

Monday, March 2nd, 2015

LEGO-Chemistry

My son illustrated how water dissolves salt in a solution, performing LEGO chemistry! He started with a square green base. He placed yellow and orange LEGOs on the bottom, representing Na and Cl. The Na (sodium ion) is positively charged, and the Cl (chloride ion) is negatively charged.

When placed in water, the water has a polar covalent bond, meaning that the water molecules are slightly charged. This is because the Oxygen pulls harder on the shared Hydrogen electrons, making the Oxygen side negatively charged. The two smaller Hydrogens are slightly positively charged because their electrons are being hogged by the Oxygen most of the time.

NaCl-H2O

When the table salt (NaCl) is placed into water (H20), the positively-charged Sodium atom is attracted to the negatively-charged Oxygen atom, pulling the Sodium away from the Chloride. In the same way, the negatively-charged Chloride ion is attracted to the positive end of the water molecule (the two Hydrogen atoms).

The water is dissolving the salt by breaking the Na apart from the Cl in this way. The small blue LEGOs are Oxygen atoms, and the red LEGOs are Hydrogen atoms. (In reality, he should have used tiny single LEGOs for the Hydrogen atoms, because they are way smaller than Oxygen atoms are!)

lego-chemistry-2

And there you have it: LEGO Chemistry! If you did not understand my explanation, perhaps this video will help to clear things up:

How Water Dissolves Salt

Why not join the Unit Study Treasure Vault and watch the 24 high school chemistry experiments we’ve performed so far!

3-D Jerusalem Model

Monday, February 23rd, 2015

Jerusalem-modelWhen my children made a 3-D Jerusalem model out of paper, they learned a lot about the layout of Jerusalem while constructing the city. I decided to use card stock paper instead of construction paper because it’s stiffer. I also decided to use hot glue instead of white school glue because the walls instantly stood up. You can also use white school glue like I did with my Bible class at the Christian school where I taught years ago. It will just take longer for the glue to dry, and meanwhile, the walls might fall down if you don’t hold them up for a few minutes. It’s definitely easier with hot glue.

3-D-Jerusalem-modelStart with a piece of white card stock paper. Look up a map of Jerusalem, either from a book on your shelf, the back of your Bible, or the internet. Grab a pencil and sketch the outer outline of the city. ThenĀ  fill in the major parts of the city, especially the wall that divides the city and the wall around the Temple.

Jerusalem-model-2You can cut out pieces of card stock paper to represent the Temple, Herod’s palace, and two pools of water. Then cut strips of card stock paper, making turrets for the walls.

Plug in your hot glue gun, and make a line of hot glue along the pencil line where the wall should be. Grab one of your walls and set it inside the hot glue. It instantly stands up. (I filmed this process, and you can watch it under the Lamentations Unit Study inside the Unit Study Treasure Vault.)

jerusalemThe leftover pieces from the wall were used for the buildings and houses inside the city of Jerusalem. Now your 3-D Jerusalem model is complete. You can use it to tell Bible stories from the time of David all the way through the ministry of Jesus. We constructed this city while studying the book of Lamentations, and we set fire to the city by using red, orange, and yellow tissue paper. We then lamented the fall of Jerusalem before going into exile to Babylon.

If you enjoyed this activity, you will love the Unit Study Treasure Vault. Why not join the Vault today and bring life to your Bible lessons?