Legos: How much do you "need"? - Page 2

[SeekingJoy]

As a former Lego fanatic and the wife of a still-Lego-obsessed guy and mom of a junior Lego-freak, you have gotten some great advice.

The big tubs of basic lego bricks are great, but they aren't a really good indicator of whether your kid will be into legos or not. They don't have enough variety in shape or specialty pieces to do the really cool stuff. Think of them as great supplements to a kit.

Also, some kids need instructions, or at least enjoy making something once with the instructions and then can dive in from that starting point. A great feature of the kits, especially the ones for "older" kids is they include fun specialty pieces -- joints, wheels, multi-faceted, clear pieces that can be used as lasers or lights, etc -- that are what actually make building fun and allow movement.

As far as the base plates, it depends on what he wants to build. I always liked to build castles, houses, and towns. Base plates were essential. DH likes to build robots and DS likes to build (so far) jets and cars. Base plates are useless to them, but wheels, joints, etc are essential.

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Originally Posted by SeekingJoy 

As a former Lego fanatic and the wife of a still-Lego-obsessed guy and mom of a junior Lego-freak, you have gotten some great advice.

The big tubs of basic lego bricks are great, but they aren't a really good indicator of whether your kid will be into legos or not. They don't have enough variety in shape or specialty pieces to do the really cool stuff. Think of them as great supplements to a kit.

Also, some kids need instructions, or at least enjoy making something once with the instructions and then can dive in from that starting point. A great feature of the kits, especially the ones for "older" kids is they include fun specialty pieces -- joints, wheels, multi-faceted, clear pieces that can be used as lasers or lights, etc -- that are what actually make building fun and allow movement.

As far as the base plates, it depends on what he wants to build. I always liked to build castles, houses, and towns. Base plates were essential. DH likes to build robots and DS likes to build (so far) jets and cars. Base plates are useless to them, but wheels, joints, etc are essential.

I think we are really, really ready for a Lego playdate now.   I can see N wanting to build places for the guys to hang out. K on the other hand will likely be the one into building vehicles, what a shock! When they play with Duplo N builds houses, and K takes the one car piece and stacks as much as he can onto it, then drives it around.

[rabbitmum]

You need lots! They are the best toys you can get. They last forever - my 4 yo DS2 is now playing with Lego sets that my 22 yo DS2 used to play with (and still plays with, together with 4 yo DS2, when DS1 is home).

Yes, they need to be organised to lessen the frustration of looking for that particular piece. We have plastic baskets in a shelf: one basket for figurines and their hats, shields etc; one for space ship and airplane related pieces; one for pirate ship and Egyptian related pieces; one for castle related pieces; and a big box for more "ordinary" pieces plus wheels, windows etc. Plus one where he keeps the Lego Kingdom ones that he is now getting in his Lego Advent Calendar. We put the boxes away when they are not played with, so that he doesn't have all the sets available at the same time - unless he wants to play with all of them. DS2 is worried about visiting kids messing up the system. ;)

Both my DSs love sets with instructions to follow, and even 4yo DS2 is quite good and understanding instructions drawings.

We also have a big box of Duplo pieces and a Duplo trainset, the latter passed down from 25 yo cousin. Duplos and Legos are two different kinds of things.

[SeekingJoy]

Originally Posted by Biscuits & Gravy 

I think we are really, really ready for a Lego playdate now.   I can see N wanting to build places for the guys to hang out. K on the other hand will likely be the one into building vehicles, what a shock! When they play with Duplo N builds houses, and K takes the one car piece and stacks as much as he can onto it, then drives it around.

Yes!! PM'ed you.

[mamalisa]

We are buying our kids a 30 pound box of legos off ebay as their big Christmas gift.  So obviously we feel like you can never have enough lego!  I need to find some more base plates but Toys R Us seems to be the only game in town.

[zebra15]

Now you need to plan for storage as a PP stated.  You need shallow clear bins that you can sort those blocks into so the kids can find what they are looking for.

DS10 is a lego fanatic and ONLY wants specific sets, no boxes of square blocks.  (London Bridge is $239.00  FYI)   (Spaceship is $99.00)  etc...Last Christmas he was totally into the Technic sets, this year he is into landmarks etc.  The only good thing is LEGO holds resale really well and those discontinued sets sell for OVER retail and I will be able to recoupe my $$  .....

[Marsupialmom]

I forgot about those!! LOL  My son is 16 and has a few.  But he discovered sharpies and how to sew/make Lego clothes. LOL. 

Originally Posted by HollyBearsMom 

Your son is probably too young for these now but it is my son's new fascination on the Lego front. http://www.brickarms.com/

I got my son the medic kit http://www.brickarms.com/Toys/accessories/medkit.aspx

and the spy kit  http://www.brickarms.com/Toys/accessories/SpyBriefCase.aspx

 I do have to say that a I cracked up when they recently added this disclaimer! 

[mamadelbosque]

Its impossible to have too many legos. My brother & I both collected them for years and years and years. Eventually we were requesting/buying sets, not really to build them (though we would, once), but just for the special pieces that you only get in sets X Y or Z (ie, pirate sets have ships, castle sets have castles & horses & carts, etc). Unless I'm quite mistaken, my brother still has a huge tub full of them, and I know I do. I honestly can't wait for my boys to be big enough to break them all out and give to them. I'm sure I have thousands (my tub - probably 10 or 15 gallon - is totally full - you can barely set the lid on!!

EDIT: Oh, and I disagree on the sorting your legos thing... we tried that, briefly. It was far too much of a PITA to keep it up with the amount of legos we had/have. It meant taking creations apart took nearly as long as putting them together... Personally, I much prefer a nice big tub to dump all the legos into and which you can dig through. My brother at some point got a sheet which all the legos stayd on - I never did, but definetly plan on getting one for the boys once we get my old legos out. You put all the legos on/in the sheet and then into the tub to store. When you want to play you lift the whole thing out and then can easily dig through them, without making a huge nearly-impossible-to-pick-up-mess :P

[LoveMyTwoBoys]

I disagree.  There are ceratain ages where you CAN have too many Legos.  At 3 & 5.5, the thousamds and thousands of Legos we have are WAY too many for our wild boys.  They end up all over the house and often times the yard.  We try to keep them in one area, but the boys move them from one place to the other, someone ends up throwing them at the other someone, they bring them to me to show or take apart for them.  Don't get me wrong, the boys LOVE their Legos, especially in cold weather.  However, they were not ready for the combined boatload DH and I gave them earlier in the year.  We have since put 3/4 of them back into storage and the couple thousand they still have daily access to is more than enough for now.  IF they get a set or something for a gift or special surprise, we put away some in the drawer.

Oh, and sorting them is a waste of time.  The search for the right piece is part of the fun!

[TanyaS]

According to my 9 year old, there is no such thing as "too many legos."

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Well, after DS went to bed with his new mini fig next to him on a nightstand, with his hand touching the little guy, DH and I had a talk. I'm taking back the basic block sets and plates I got yesterday and getting them each something big and cool. A City set with stores, a bus, and a skateboard guy for DS1, and the Duplo fire station for DS2. They are expensive, but part of the sale and Grandma is buying. They are going to be so thrilled.

[Marsupialmom]

I don't know if I would take all the basic blocks back.  Save them for a rainy day situation.  

And I do disagree with sorting them.  We never did.  We had a bucket and just a way to keep the mess contain and easily cleaned.  But no harder than doing the same thing for play dough.  

[meetoo]

I think for a 4 year old basic sets like this (Target and Walmart sell this set much cheaper) and the small sets like this. are best.  You can  usually find them for between 5 and 15 dollars.  The smaller sets are easier to put together and will give you a lot of variety to start with.  My son is 5 and has been obsessed since he was two with Lego!  You can't have to many (well in our case you can lol) but I wouldn't buy them all at once. See what he likes to build and how well he i s able to follow the directions. He also might prefer to do all creative building.  We got a lot of  our Lego second hand at yard sales. It's a great way to add to a collection without going broke :). My son loves them all. The used ones give him a huge variety and more basic bricks and the sets allow him to follow directions to build something.   We keep them in sterilight (sp) 7 drawer cart. Sometimes we sort them into basic categorizes but they never stay that way. :)

Oh, one more thing, until you know how your son does with Lego I would stick kinda close to the age recommendations on the box.  Some of the kits are very complicated. :)

[musikat]

Too many Legos? No such thing, according to my boys! I agree with the advice to get the "cool" sets. The brick buckets really don't give you the minifigures, and those are the heart of Lego play -- at least for my guys. When my oldest was 5 and my middle was 3, I ordered the younger one the city minifigure set for Christmas, not realizing it was the tiny ones. When it came and I saw how small they were I gave it to my 5yo. Well... the 3 year old was in love and continues to be at almost 7. It depends on the kid and his or her ability to follow instructions and build, but the City sets are a great starter for a 4/5 yo. My middle son now is on to age 8 or 9+ up sets and is getting three different Atlantis sets for Christmas (including the big one). He also wants several sets that are MUCH older, like the Medieval village (12+). My biggest challenge was deciding which Legos NOT to get and inserting some other toys into his Christmas. ;)

And I laughed at the above poster who mentioned the Death Star. I JUST had that same conversation with my 8YO -- "No, I will not be buying you the $400 Death Start. Ever." :lol

[dbsam]

My children love their Legos but unlike pp's they prefer the basic blocks to the kits.   They are six and mostly like to build buildings, towns, cars, etc. of their own design.  I've never seen Legos used or on sale; we order from the Lego site.  (I never thought to check Craigslist but will in the future!)  We started with the blue and pink buckets and have added ~five 600-700 piece brick boxes and several base plates..  We've also added extra windows, doors, vehicle pieces, etc.  Lately, they've been asking for more bricks.