Imagine 60 children between kindergarten and seventh grade, working together with family and religious school teachers to build a scale model of Jerusalem using 60,000 Legos.

This was the scene in the Wax Auditorium of Temple Beth El, Allentown, recently orchestrated by Religious School Director Alicia Zahn.

According to Zahn, Temple Beth El received a donation of $1,000 from Steven and Nancy Goldman of Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

The couple made a commitment to perform 26 acts of kindness following the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Zahn said as the money was donated for the children, it was spent to provide them with a fun and engaging supplement to their usual Sunday School lessons.

"I heard about this event years ago, but it was expensive for our budget," Zahn said. "But following the Sandy Hook tragedy, a couple generously donated some money, and I figured this would be good for the children and this would be a fabulous project for them because every single one of them is engaged and they are learning together and as families."

The students received direction from Stephen and Bunny Schwartz from Building Blocks Workshop, Livingston, N.J.

"I noticed when we are doing architectural projects, it is so much easier to understand a three-dimensional model, because once you see a model it is easier to visualize it in your mind," Schwartz said, before he directed the students, parents and teachers to the 400-square-foot scale map of Jerusalem laid out in front of them. "This is a map of the old city. This drawing is exactly to scale, so everything is the shape that it is in real life.

He then directed the children toward the various locations they would be building.

The first highlights, the wall around the city and the gates, were indicated by a red line.

Others included the Bet Hamikdash (Old Temple), Kotel (Western Wall of the Temple), David's Tower, the Montifiore Windmill, and 80 other buildings within the walls.

According to Bunny Schwartz, she and her husband started the program 15 years ago because their daughter, who teaches second grade, wanted to teach her class about zoning.

Stephen Schwartz, a licensed architect, brought a map of their town and the kids built their hometown in Legos.

A rabbi from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement encouraged them to make it about Israel, so they made a map of Jerusalem and started offering their program to synagogues and schools.

After Schwartz's explanation of the map and some instruction on architectural technique, the kids were off to their various stations to work on specific buildings for the city or to construct houses to put within the walls.

The sound of chattering children and the clicking and clacking of tens of thousands of Lego blocks filled the room.

"It's a lot of fun. We are playing with Legos, and it isn't that what we are used to doing," seventh grade student Matthew Zager, 12, said as he built the Montifiore Windmill with his peers.

Seventh grader Bayley Ahdieh, 13, worked with a group of her peers on the wall of the city.

"It is a lot of fun. It is actually more challenging than I expected. Connecting the blocks properly, so they aren't stacked but linked together, is hard. But I am still having a good time," Ahdieh said.

"It is kind of hectic but it is fun. There are a lot of Legos everywhere so we need to watch where we step but I like how we can be creative and use imagination," fifth grader Jennifer Schubach, 10, said.

Eleise Teichman attended the event with her son, Joshua, 7, and daughter, Alexis, 5.

"It is something different. It's a way to learn about Jerusalem in a fun way," she said, as her kids were building an intricate multicolored Lego house.

"It is a great event, it's very creative and it makes the kids understand Jerusalem and the different quarters, and why they are where they are," third grade teacher Levana Berlin said.

"Jerusalem is a real place, and it is historical and part of our history and our present. This event makes it real for the kids, especially the ones who have never been there," Cantor Kevin Wartell said, as the kids picked up the stray Legos.

Once the extra Legos had been put away, Schwartz congratulated the children on how much they had accomplished in less than two hours.

"This is a smaller group than what we usually have. You guys built an amazing model for this size group," he said. "As I said before, now it is much easier to visualize the city of Jerusalem."

He then provided the students with an informative tour of the city they just built.

Starting with the gates and working inward, Scwartz explained the structures and their historical significant.

He took the students through the Christian, Arab, and Jewish quarters of the city and explained the atmosphere of each.

Within 15 minutes, the model that had taken almost two hours to complete was dismantled.