Jerusalem of Legos

In December, we had a wonderful program at our synagogue where we built a model of Jerusalem from Legos. A giant map was placed on the floor and the children chose buildings to work on, either individually or in groups. The grown-ups got to help too. After we were done, the organizer walked through the model city and taught us about each building. For the people who have never visited Jerusalem, it was like a virtual visit. For those of us who have been there, it was a wonderful reminder of a special city.

My older son, Zachary teamed up with the other third grade boys to build the Tower of David, an old Tower near the Jaffa Gate which has been turned into a museum. This was a great choice for him since he particularly enjoyed the exhibit when we were there. Each of the major buildings was assigned a particular color of bricks, so they were told to build the Tower of David in red.


My younger son Benjamin chose to build a gate and was assigned the New Gate. He was very proud of his creation and was happy to pose in front of it.


Since each of my sons were very proud of their participation in this event, I wanted to make a layout for each of their scrapbooks. I chose CJS papers with dotted patterns to echo the dots on the Legos. In case you are wondering, I asked my sons to "loan" me a few real Legos to use as embellishments. After much consideration, they looked through the thousands of Legos in the playroom and came up with 3 pieces that they were willing to share.