LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Legos have been used to create life-size replicas of a spacecraft, house and even a sea serpent. 

What You Need To Know

  • Cindy Hundley is the library media specialist at Gutermuth Elementary School

  • She has incorporated Legos into math, art, and reading lessons

  • Hundley is raising money to purchase more Legos for the library 

  • There are not enough Legos for students to continually build 

Ronae Rutledge is only a 5th grader, but she has built more things than some seasoned architects. 

“I’ve created a chicken. I’ve created a big mansion house, cars,” says Rutledge. “I’m washing the meat because it’s not cooked yet and I have to wash it.” 

Her latest project included building a burger and a stop-motion video. 

“I don’t want to see my hand moving the fire so I’m using invisible string, and I’m gonna put it over the top and it’ll look something like that like the fire will be moving,” says Rutledge.  

This video production assignment is just one way Gutermuth Elementary School librarian Cindy Hundley has incorporated Legos into lessons. 

Her students have used Legos for projects like building pollinator-friendly gardens, designing solutions to save koala bears, and making digital books. 

“It’s super cool. It’s engaging. The students love it. It’s an endless opportunity because there are no boundaries with Lego,” says Hundley.

There is one boundary. 

The library collection started with her childhood set and bricks she found at yard sales and on eBay. 

“The problem is we have enough Legos for a class, but then when I have another class the next week we have to break down everything we’ve made because we don’t have enough to build and build and build and display so I have a selection or a space in the back to display work but I can’t really put it there because we don’t have enough Legos to continually build,” says Hundley. 

She is raising money to make sure each student has the tiny blocks that help them express themselves in major ways. 

“There are some students who they’re not very verbal and they came back and with the Legos. They built so many things and they were able to show that they were learning even though they weren’t doing a lot of sharing in class,” says Hundley. “A lot of times people think Lego is just for play and actually, Lego can expand to every subject area. We’ve used it in math, we’ve used it in reading, so yes, well it is seen as a toy. It is actually a very serious learning tool.”

It’s a tool that proves how fun learning can be. 

For information on how you can support Ms. Hundley’s fundraiser for bricks and mini figures, visit this website.

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