Dump out your LEGOs and grab your history books

In our homeschool history lessons we pull out a lot of LEGOs to create LEGO history. LEGOs have a wide variety of uses in your history and geography lessons:

• provide visual aid of how history unfolded
• build famous monuments
• re-enact famous scenes in history

I’m sure there’s even more that I haven’t thought of yet, but it’ll come to me later on.  Hopefully, this will give you some inspiration for your own LEGO history lessons, or some amusement as you read my oh so serious history lessons.

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What do you need for LEGO history lessons?

Honestly, you can use the LEGOs you already have.  If you look at my lessons, most of them unfold in this manner.  That’s why the discovery of Greenland is being told with Ninjago figures.

BUT……  If you want your history lessons to be a bit more “authentic” let me point you to a few sets that will get you going.

LEGO Pirates Chess Set*– this gives you a large number of blue-coated soldiers and pirates.  The blue-coated soldiers work wonderfully for early American soldiers.  The pirates can be used for all sorts of figures that you need, barbarians, random people, they’re great for that.

LEGO Kingdoms Set Chess Set *– this set gives you massive numbers of knights and two different types of armor (in role-playing parlance these two sets would be called army builder sets, large numbers of figures for little investment).

LEGO Juniors Pirate Treasure Hunt Set*– Buy this set to get yourself a rowboat.  There are dozens of lessons you can do with a rowboat, a map, and a few guys.  This is the most cost-effective way to get a boat.  Bonus you also get a shark, which could be fun to play around with.

Brick Forge– I keep an eye on their 30 under 30 or 1/2 price steals. They have some amazing historical specialty figures and accessories.

LEGO history gives visual aids of how history unfolded

This is the primary way we use LEGO history lessons.  The kids find me the figure I need, and then we sit down with a giant map of the relevant countryside, a few notes or our textbook, and we start telling the tale.

Ancient LEGO history lessons

• Ancient Sumerian lessons
• Battle of Jericho
• Minoans
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Siege of Jerusalem
• History of the Catapult
• History of Hanukkah
• Paul’s first missionary journey
• Paul’s third missionary journey
• City of Pompeii

 

This is anything from the start of the world all the way through the Roman Empire (I know generally ancient history is split off around the life of Christ, but I like to get the whole Roman empire together, rather than split in two).

 

 

Middle Ages LEGO history lessons

This will run you from about the mid-400s up to the invention of the printing press.  Once the written word is more freely available and doesn’t become an expensive luxury, the world changes fast.

• Joan of Arc
• Saint Boniface
• Saint Patrick’s Day
• Voyages of Leif Ericson
• Discovery of Greenland

 

Renaissance and Reformation LEGO history lessons

It’s amazing how much the world changes in just a few hundred years.

• Bartholomeu Dias
• Prince Henry the Navigator
• Henry Hudson
• First Thanksgiving
• Magellan
• discovery of Australia
• Vasco de Gama
• Ponce de Leon
• Thirty Years War history lesson

 

Modern LEGO history lessons

If the pace of change seemed fast during the Renaissance, my head spins with how much is crammed into such very short time periods.

• Seven Years War
• Treaty of Paris
• Battles of Lexington and Concord
• Steps to the American Revolution
• Start of World War 1
• Start of World War 2

Originally published December 28, 2017, updated today