Lego ?

[sbgrace]

My boys turned six and got a slew of lego sets for their birthday from various relatives. They love to build things but prior their only legos were duplo. These are sets to build a plane or truck or etc.

So we opened one and built the plane (together...I had to point out mistakes at times and stuff..they weren't self sufficient the first time through anyway). Since then they've just been playing with the pieces of the set building misc. stuff and having a great time.

I haven't opened any of the other sets they received because I don't know what to do!

Do people keep the sets together in ziplocks so they can be rebuilt or do kids typically just build things once and then use the parts for whatever is in their imagination? I assume if I mix these sets they will never build the item intended again/it would be difficult given the detailed items. Is that bad?

[milkybean]

We keep all instruction manuals. It's actually quite frightening, how good DS and DH are about knowing which tiny intricate pieces came from which set. I have NO idea except for the obvious ones...but they can pinpoint these little things.

We build each thing once. Then eventually things come apart.

We got sterilite bins (with the easy opening side-flip handles) from Target, on sale, the shoebox size ones. And they are separated into colors (the clear ones are altogether no matter what color they are).

And they are used to make whatever DS feels like making! He makes the coolest things. DH finally convinced me that coffee tables are good, so we got those cheapie Lack tables from Ikea...one was supposed to be for DH and me, the other for DS, but DS occasionally takes both over. One day he had a space station going on one big base plate on one table, and on the other table he had a whole Indiana Jones thing based on the box the set came in, but with his own inventions (note: he's never seen any I Jones movies, though he has seen Star Wars 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6...not 2 though...I haven't even seen 2).

It all works well for us!

The one issue we had was him leaving legos everywhere...that was solved when HE stepped hard on one. Then he realized what we'd been complaining about!


Anyway, if the kids are happy with the sets you've opened, stick with that for awhile! Once they are interested in another (and maybe once you've figured out a storage solution that works for the ones that will be playing with the legos) open another. My guy likes having them ALL out and open and combined. Other kids are different.

Anyway, back to putting them back together...you'd probably be surprised at how well they could find all the little pieces again, if they wanted to build a certain exact thing again.

[~Adorkable~]

I'm a huge lego fan and get them as gifts for family and friends kids a lot. usually they build it once and then go wild. i think that is just great. the power of legos in my eyes is that they are open ended play that really works the imagination and are still structured in such a way as to really support success, most anyone can build something really cool.

i think they are great toys, now if i could not step ion them in bare feet, ouch!!

[LaughingHyena]

DD likes to keep hers seperate for a while, then they go into one box.

So far the sets she has are pretty small and the instructions are just one page. I've laminated them and she keeps them on top of the box.

For the pieces themseleves she has 2 or 3 small tupperware type boxes which she can sort a set into. One of them usually has the tiny tiny pieces like the hats and accessories for the people.

For now the whole thing fits in one plastic tub with a lid. I see more/larger tubs in the future though.

I think it was on here I saw a family had made a board with raised edges on casters so it could be pushed under the bed when not in use. I thought that was a great idea and would like to do it at some point.

[lucyem]

Originally Posted by •Adorkable•

usually they build it once and then go wild.

Thats how it is around here too. My DS builds it once or twice and then all legos end up in a big under bed type bin. Now and then he will pull out the instructions and build something again but usually he does his own thing.

[AllisonR]

Ditto. My DS builds the item once, then eventually it gets warped into something else, along with all the small parts from another lego set. Start with an airplane set and a starwars set. So first you have the plane and the starwars ship. Six months later it has morped into 3 smaller star wars planes, a windmill and some extra pieces.

I'd buy a big box of plain legos. Then they can build whatever they want. And they are more flexible - I mean 500 bricks can be a house, a barn, a croud of people, a ship, a maze, whatever.... and broken and made into something else almost instantly.

Also, there is a medium size lego - ones smaller than duplo and bigger than the standard size.

[fritz]

I like things organized, and we've got the space in DS's bedroom, so for now, most of the Legos are still in their original boxes (I bought him a big box of loose bricks; soon after that I had each color in its own ziplock baggie inside that box). I've also got a couple of large bead organizers that we use to keep the thinner pieces separated, so all the little one peg pieces are in one bin, all the two pegs in another, etc--not sorted by color.

Each manual does have a list of the parts included at the back, so when we build a kit that's been cannibalized (he usually goes weeks between building the same kit again and he loves to destroy his creations), it does take a little bit of searching to replace the missing parts...but since my DS loosened up by accepting different colors (than the original), it's been a lot easier to reconstruct the kits. My almost 5yo DS can spend 20 minutes just examining the pictures on the boxes, though, so that's part of why we still have them.

In our house, he can play with them on the living room floor, but as soon as he's done, the Legos go up on the coffee table, so stepping on them is only an issue for DH on the weekends, who has huge feet, and is so tall that it's hard for him to see some of the pieces hiding on the patterned area rug.

[Village Mama]

it would depend on personal preferences I suppose. All of our Lego is second hand, but there are a couple of sets in there. We have ours in one of those under the bed plastic storage containers. These are awesome because they are shallow... you can root around easily to find pieces without dumping the entire thing out. We actually have three bins like this ( they slide under the loveseat futon in the playroom) one with lego, one with K'nex and the other with playmobile parts. These are pretty much the only toys my kids have and play with, and the bin system works so well.
Adding... i keep a file folder with pockets thrown in the bin with all of the instruction booklets inside.

[4evermom]

Ds likes to keep his sets together. We keep the instructions, just in case. They have the parts number so you can order replacement parts if necessary. He is very careful with them and uses the built sets for role playing the way kids do with playmobile. It's like building model planes or ships or something but easier and using legos and no glue. He has a ton of legos he uses for designing his own structures and vehicles. Some of those stay together and some get taken apart.

I'd just keep the manuals and follow your kids lead as to what they want out of legos. It's disheartening to have someone take apart your creation when you aren't ready (having your parents "put away" your legos or having another child want to use the same pieces and having to "share" them. Not saying you would do that but I hear of that sort of mindset). Like art, sometimes you want to hang up your painting and sometimes you decide to reuse the canvas and paint over it.

Some kids like sorting through a big bin and finding all those specialty pieces. Don't sweat them getting mixed up too much (or you'll go mad ). If the kids care, they'll be more careful and you'll just need to provide bins or something for keeping them in categories that make sense to the kids.

[425lisamarie]

DS has SO many of those it's crazy he can do them himself. He is going on 6 and has incredible skills started doing these about a year ago.

He has several of the starwars, the GIANT police center, I don't even know how many total he has. I have a nice tall bookshelf that he keeps them displayed. I keep the instructions, too

[One_Girl]

My dd doesn't like to follow instructions so I just mix all of the things together and she builds what she wants to build. She gets very creative. If your kids like to just play with legos then I think you should mix them and save on space. If will only do it if they can have the exact thing in the manual then I think you should get ziplocks and keep them together.

[sweetcheeks]

Like many other PPs' children, DS1 will build the set once and it will stay assembled for awhile. Then it will come apart and go into the big Lego tub. He then just builds what his heart desires.

[eepster]

Ours just go into a bin all together. If we want to put a particular item together from the instructions again, we just go searching through the box. When ever I'm at the Lego store I take a look at the pick a brick bins and see if there are any small pieces that we went crazy looking for recently, then I'll buy a bunch extra of those (I'm very good at packing those little cups to the brim.)

[Girlprof]

DS likes to keep his sets built. He builds stuff and then plays with it. We also have a big bin with "generic" bricks that aren't from a particular set.

DH just today put up a cool shelf so that DS can display his lego models and doesn't have to take them half apart to get them into the various bins I have for them. He's thrilled. Sang his little lego song while he put all that stuff on the new shelf, just adorable.

But yes, different kids will do different things with it. When I was growing up, we had one huge bin and once we'd made something, everything got chucked in there.

[Needle in the Hay]

Well the best I can do is keep similar looking series together. A lot of Lego Castle and Lego Pirates pieces are the same or similar (a lot of dark brown). Some are of obviously one or the other but it's easy to keep these two series in the same bin. Same for Mars Missions and Star Wars.

Then we have a bin for miscellaneous legos (some City sets, bionicle and lots of plain old lego bricks). My son plays with lego most every day but it's rare he builds exactly the set as shown on the box other than that first time. He does look at the instructions occasionally though so we keep those.

Keeping the sets in ziplocs is great if you can manage it, but I can't really see it working that well long term. All building is good though!

eta: DS didn't really start getting a lot of lego sets until he could build them by himself. In fact the first thing I bought him was a big bucket of legos after he'd received a couple of small City sets where I had to do most of the building. He really took off with legos when he was 7 (regular legos that is, he'd been enjoying duplos for years before that).

[PGTlatte]

I think I've decided I'm not going to buy them any more of the special sets until they are old enough to not take them apart and scatter the pieces all over the place. The reason that bugs me is that in the middle of a weekday one of them will have a crisis getting upset that the tractor (or whatever) is no longer together and has to be put back together right now to be played with, and be very upset that the tractor (or whatever) is "broken" and "the pieces all got lost". Ugh. I have tried keeping all the parts to each kit in its own baggie but the little one just loves to take things apart and run off with the pieces. So, for now, I'm sticking with buying random parts they can build into whatever they want. The kits are so cool, but a recipe for trouble here.

[mamadelbosque]

I always built them and played with them as sets for a while, then eventually tore them apart. I still have all my legos - one huge bin full. I'm pretty sure my brother still has all of his too (another huge bin full), and I *just* found all our old instruction manuals a couple months ago (that I'd previosuly thought permantly lost from moving when I was 17/18 from one house to another to another - I was/am SO happy!!). The fun of legos, IMO is building stuff initially, then tearing it apart to build whatever you want to. Keep the instruction manuals, for sure, but don't bother seperating, IMO. Digging through a huge bin of legos looking for one specific piece is SO. MUCH. FUN! Seriously!!