DIY Building Block Travel Table and LEGO Fun

Thanks for sharing!

Hey there! I hope you all are having an amazing summer so far! I’m sharing some LEGO fun today.

We’ve been getting a lot of use from our Building Block Travel Table my husband John designed and built for us. Even though the weather is gorgeous (hypothyroid mom loves hot weather), between the reactive airways of the boys and the stifling heat that bothers people with normal metabolism, we’ve still been inside a good bit.

We school year round so we can break whenever we like. Right now we aren’t breaking, but doing light work, and we have been using our LEGO Minifigures and block table to make visual Bible verse aids as well as to facilitate storytelling and speech practice. For lots of LEGO inspired fun, check out my LEGO Pinterest Board!

Storytelling with LEGO – Mr. T’s Mermaid Tale

Mr. T has a very vivid imagination, is currently fascinated by dying, and loves “monsters” of all sorts, including sharks. His Apraxia is getting beaten slowly but surely, so I included subtitles as much as I could understand. Enjoy!

LEGO Sets We Use and Love

LEGO Education Historical and Fantasy MiniFigures (the set the mermaids are in)
LEGO Project Case (where our mini figure collection is stored)
LEGO Castle Dragon Mountain
LEGO Bricks and More Creative Bucket (There are even cool LEGO “googly” eyes in this one!)

LEGO Bible Fun

Above you can see a LEGO “Mr. T”. Psalm 119:105 is a wonderful verse, so I set up LEGO Mr. T and his binoculars on the travel table, along with a host of yellow bricks and an “altar” with a flaming light. While we worked on reciting our verse, Mr. T (the real one) had to build a road to get LEGO Mr. T to the light. In about 10 minutes, our verse for the week was cemented into Mr. T’s head, and hopefully his heart. For our VBS (Journey Off the Map) week we used Isaiah 30:21 as our verse and our LEGO Isaiah was very funny. Mr. T is loving the LEGOs in conjunction with our Bible memory work. We will be using some verses from our Because I Said So junior study (all about obedience) for the next few weeks as we finish that up. Having that visual and tactile aid has really helped Mr. T (and me) do better with our memory work.

Tips for using LEGO for Bible Memory work

Get a good selection of Minifigures
Get creative – Build paths, altars, sheep, hearts, etc. Whatever goes with your verse and helps your little one remember.
If you have toddlers coming up behind your elementary learners, take pictures so the next time around you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and can just look to see what you did for a particular verse.

Just for Fun

I’m sharing John’s Building Block Travel Table Design with you. This is for educational and informational purposes only. He writes designs down so he can duplicate. Something he keeps after me to try out in the kitchen 😉 since I can never replicate my concoctions successfully. These are not professional instructions or plans, but if they inspire your own Building Block Travel Table Design, we’d love to see it! These are going on my list of gifts John can make for birthdays 🙂

Building Block Travel Table

Design by John Molettiere

Material list:

(2) 10”x10” LEGO® plates

(1) 2’x4’ x1/4” sanded ply wood

(2) ½”x6”x 36” wood – I used poplar.

(1) ½”x4”x36” wood

(1) 1x2x4

(2) 1-1/4-in Cotterless Hitch Pins

(4) ¼”x 1-1/2” bolts with ¼” nylon insert lock nuts

(4) flat washers

(1) drawer handle and short screws – ¾” in length

contact cement

wood glue

Start by cutting two grooves into the ½” x 6” planks. The grooves should be ¼”wide and ¼” deep. They run the length of plank. The top groove starts ½” from the top and the bottom groove starts 1-1/2” from the bottom. The grooves should be on the same side.
Next, cut the planks to the following lengths: two pieces at 22” and two pieces at 11”.
Now take the two 11” pieces and cut at the top groove so that you have a ½”x½” square dowel. Set it aside for later.

* I did this way to ensure all the grooves would line up later.

Cut down the plywood to the following sizes:

(1) 11-½” x 21-½”

(2) 11-½” x 11”

Next, rip the ½” x 4” down to 3” cut the ½”x3” plank to the following lengths:

(3) 11”

(3) 3”

* the ½”x3” in the store is actually ½” x 2- ½”. We can use a ½”x 3” from the store and glue on a ½” x ½” dowel to it.

Finally cut the 1”x2” down to (4) 10” pieces. Round off one end of each piece to look like this. Drill a ¼” hole in the middle of the bend.

Next, the larger of the three pieces of plywood is the bottom. First test fit it to bottom grooves that were cut earlier. Sand as necessary for it to fit. Glue on all four sides to the bottom and to each other.

Now test fit the two top pieces. They slide in from the ends. Sand until you can slide them to meet in the middle. Do NOT Glue these pieces. Take the ½”x½” that was cut in step 3 and glue them one on each lid piece centering on the 11-½” side. It does not go on the 11” side.
When the lid lip glue is dry install the lid and drill a ¼” hole that starts on the side and goes into the ½” x ½” square dowel that is the lid lip. This hole is for the cotterless hitch pins.
Drill ¼” holes in the sides for the legs. Looking at the long side, measure in from each side 1- 3/8” and ¾” from the bottom. Do that for each leg.
Drill the holes for the handle. Handles come in different widths. I centered mine both from top and bottom and from side to side.
Break out the contact cement. Follow the directions on the cement. Glue one plate to each lid piece. The LEGO® plate goes on the same face as the lip lid and should be flush with the side opposite the lid lip and centered.

Make the dividers. Using glue and/or nails, screws, tape. Attach the end of a 3” piece to the middle of and 11” piece. Then add the other 3” pieces to the other side of the same 11” piece. Finally add an 11” piece to the double 3” piece and the other 11” to the first 3” piece. From above it should look like this.