The first time I took my kids to Stone Zoo, I knew we’d found a winner. It’s less than 20 minutes from the Cambridge/Somerville area, you can see every animal in an hour and a half (many of them nice and close!), and there is a playground inside the zoo.
But right now? Stone Zoo has even more to offer — in the form of life-size animal sculptures made out LEGOS!
This “Brick Safari” at Stone Zoo is pretty awe-inspiring. (In fact, I think my husband and I were just as enamored as our kids were!) There are 40 different LEGO animals spread throughout the zoo, made up of literally hundreds of thousands of LEGOs.
The exhibit includes wildlife from all corners of the globe — from the enormous 270,000-brick elephant to a pair of adorable baby lion cubs to the playful sea otters. There’s even a 74,600-piece safari jeep kids can sit in (and parents can dutifully take photos of). The details, colors, and design of each animal are really quite impressive.
Each LEGO animal had a sign nearby stating how many bricks it took to create the sculpture, which made for a fun guessing game with the kids. The signs also shared neat facts about the animals. It was a good way to up our animal knowledge while taking in the sights of both the LEGO creations and the real-life animals all around us.
The sculptures were built by a UK-based group called BRICKLIVE, which aims to engage audiences with their unique creations, touring shows, and events. (How cool would it be to have a career as a LEGO builder?!) With this exhibit, our zoo hopes to show kids how our ecosystem is not unlike the giant animal sculptures — each creation relies upon thousands of bricks to keep it strong, and each brick has a part to play. Similarly, every species, large and small, plays a crucial role in a balanced ecosystem. Here’s to our kids becoming biodiversity builders!
Brick Zafari will be at Stone Zoo in Stoneham through January 4. We plan to go again toward the end of the year when ZooLights is up and running — the brick sculptures will be lit by thousands of twinkling lights!
