From Lego to Loyalty: A Heart Full of Thanks!

From Lego to Loyalty: A Heart Full of Thanks Today, I pause with a thankful grin, For all the joys that life lets in. From Lego bricks, since I was three, To Star Wars tales of destiny. The works of Tolkien ignite my mind, With realms of courage, richly defined. A yo-yo’s spin, a Rubik’s twist, Simple joys I can’t resist. Great action movies or classics that amuse, Laughter and thrills, I gladly choose. Gus, my sidekick puppet since college days, Helping kids learn in engaging ways. To hiking trails and drones that fly, Through nature’s splendor and the open sky. Photography capturing God’s great art, And Apple tech that’s sleek and smart. Yet none of these, no earthly cheer, Compares to family, friends so dear. Their loyalty through highs and lows, Their love a constant that always shows. Through Kidology.org, my calling clear, Equipping others, year by year. To reach the kids, to teach His name, To share His love, to spread His fame. For Jesus Christ, my Savior and King, The source of every song I sing. Despite my flaws, His love remains, He guides my steps, He heals my pains. So on this day, my thanks I…

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SHAKE TO ASSEMBLE?

This morning at camp I showed the campers a really cool blue Lego Race Car Kit that I bought. I told them that my plan is to assemble it by shaking it in the box and demonstrated several shaking techniques. I even passed it through the audience letting the kids help me assemble it through shaking. I’m hoping by the end of the day it will be fully assembled inside the box so that I can just take it out and show the kids the completed car. But some think I’m crazy. They are telling me that the car had an inventor who first envisioned the car – then designed it – and that the box contains detailed instructions on how to put it together. Sounds superstitious to me! I let them know that sounds great, but I heard that our world came together randomly and by chance. It couldn’t be that Someone invented it, designed it, assembled it and made instructions on how we should then live! It just took millions of years of randomness for all this order to finally appear. So, by the same logic, if I just shake the Lego box enough times it should assemble…

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How I Write Entire Teaching Series at Once

I wanted to take you behind the curtain a bit, and share a little about how I create complete curriculum units in a short amount of time—as I’m often asked for “my secret” or for help when friends find they need to crank out an entire series in a short amount of time! I’m heading to another week of camp speaking, and I’m excited about the theme: What a FUN theme for a week of helping kids to “BUILD” their lives on the Word of God! So many applicable verses come to mind, like: You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I Peter 2:5 I’ve done a Kid’s Church unit in the past where we looked at our “Connections” to God, Family, Church, Friends, Neighbors and the World. But I had 8 chapels to write and that series was only 6 lessons—and while I could do an intro and a review—the creative in me said, “Time to do something new and fresh!” rather than rehash something old. I did look through them for “lego ideas” that would be transferable. Then the…

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A Hazzard Birthday Party for my 8 Year Old

We celebrated Luke’s eighth birthday “Hazzard County” style! He’s loved the “Dukes” since he was little, just something about those cars flying through the air and crashing! As is the annual tradition, Mom made an amazing cake to go with the theme: You can enjoy a video tour of the cake here: It was an amazing cake! Luke wanted to decorate his own cake, so Mom gave him a cake he could have some fun with, so here is HIS cake: For our first game, I gave each of the kids a LEGO car chassis and let them get creative with my LEGO in building a car… then we sent them down a ramp to let them crash! They had so much fun: Then Luke got TWO monster trucks that were designed to be able to run at the same time (often remote control vehicles signals conflict!) – so I set up a “Monster Truck Rally” and the kids took turns getting to race the monster trucks, it was a ton of fun. Here is a short YouTube video to show how it worked: Then it was time for the Magic Show: Of course, kids always love magic – but…

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Karl’s Lego Star Destroyer!

Several years ago (before I blogged on an official “blog”) I created a page that showed me and my friend Ryan Yoder assembling my Lego Star Destroyer, which at the time, was the largest Lego kit that Lego had ever created up to that point.   I often am telling kids about it (as I was this weekend in Canada) and wishing it was posted on my blog, so I am posting a post about the post where I posted about it: For all the pictures step by step (and cool star background) SEE THE ORIGINAL LEGO STAR DESTROYER POST.  It took us two full days to assemble the 3000+ pieces of this Lego work of art! So now it is linked and searchable on my blog so I can just tell kids, search my blog for Lego Star Destroyer and you’ll find a link to it! CHECK IT OUT THE COMPLETE PICTURES HERE. 

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