Purple Cat Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 My son, who just turned 6, LOVES Lego kits. He received two 500-piece Lego kits for his birthday and completed both of them without any assistance in half a day. I've decided nothing short of 750 or 1000 piece kits provide enough challenge to make them worth buying. Can anybody suggest some other types of building kits that will help him continue to develop his phenomenal visual/spatial skills and that he might enjoy? thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homefront Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 You might look into getting some Laq sets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetic license Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 zometools? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iucounu Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) My son, who just turned 6, LOVES Lego kits. He received two 500-piece Lego kits for his birthday and completed both of them without any assistance in half a day. I've decided nothing short of 750 or 1000 piece kits provide enough challenge to make them worth buying. Can anybody suggest some other types of building kits that will help him continue to develop his phenomenal visual/spatial skills and that he might enjoy? I dunno if doing bigger and bigger Lego sets will develop "phenomenal visual/spatial skills", or if it's simply more of the same. It's sort of like doing jigsaw puzzles: at some point a child masters the concepts, learns what strategies there are to learn, and bigger sets just represent more tedium. With Lego sets, since they come with directions, it's not that challenging to replicate the model in the pictures (although of course one can have a lot more creative fun with a Lego set than something like a jigsaw puzzle). Perhaps your son would enjoy Lego Mindstorms. Edited October 14, 2011 by Iucounu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Snap circuits. Get at least the 300 set. I got the Junior one--it is too tough for me at the end, but not too tough for my kids, they would have been ready for a bigger, more challenging set. They got my husband's visual spacial skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennW in SoCal Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Think outside of kits. What about adding to your collection of loose legos (you MUST have lots of those!) with a set of miscellaneous bricks? Get him one of those books of fancy lego constructions and let him start designing his own. My boys loved the Klutz Lego Contraptions kit as there were a dozen or more different contraptions to build, and Lego used to also sell kits where you could build several different things from one kit. Subscribe to the Lego club newsletter and check out the photos kids submit each month of their own designs. Check out Brick Journal both this site and the magazine. My ds also loved k'nex and the magnetic building sets (little balls and posts...can't remember what they are called) and most any electrical kit. But mostly they loved building their own creations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissKNG Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 My ds also loved k'nex . K'Nex are a hit here too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 My oldest likes to follow the directions, and he won't build anything on his own if the directions are right there. So... I took the directions away. :D He now has several "kits" all lumped together, and he also has the Lego Star Wars Dictionary, so sometimes he tries to build other things that he doesn't have kits for - look at the picture and figure out how to build it. Taking the directions away has really helped him branch out into actually building stuff on his own. He's capable of it. I think he just didn't realize he could? Now he builds things not in the Lego book. He also likes Snap Circuits quite a bit, but again, he has directions there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Another suggestion-if you can attend AFOL (Adult fan of lego) events, you'll get a lot of inspiration for off the books building. Think the kind of structures you see at Legoland, only with a creator right there, actively enthusiastic and talking about what they did, as well as activities to participate in when you're there (challenges like "Make a lego boat that you can make sail across a swimming pool. The first one to get their boat from a pile of bricks, rubber bands, and other stuff to the other side wins")-but NO guidelines or instructions. There are several different groups that do conferences- Brickfair is coming up in January in Birmingham, and we're planning to attend. The only problem is the vendor fair-set a budget before you go, and leave anything you don't want to spend somewhere else-at least, that's what I need to do, because both DH and DD would happily buy a 50 foot tall lego crane for the joy of un-and re-constructing it without thinking about how they'd get it home when they're in full-on lego mode :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen500 Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Think outside of kits. What about adding to your collection of loose legos (you MUST have lots of those!) with a set of miscellaneous bricks? Get him one of those books of fancy lego constructions and let him start designing his own. My boys have always enjoyed building their own creations. I used to buy tubs of lego, and bags of special pieces. I'm not sure if they still sell them by the bag, but maybe you can get a nice assortment with pick-a-brick at the lego website. Other favorites- K'nex wooden marble run lincoln logs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Think outside of kits. What about adding to your collection of loose legos (you MUST have lots of those!) with a set of miscellaneous bricks? Get him one of those books of fancy lego constructions and let him start designing his own. :iagree:The challenge is in the improvisation. Its a bit like math. How else can you solve this puzzle or create this item with the pieces you have? What else do these pieces do or what can they be? You can also add the Lego motor pieces or moving pieces from the engineering/education kits or LEDs and batteries to motorize your creations. The challenge is not in the initial build, but in the re-design and re-build. Ds has also loved erector sets and snap circuits but Legos top the list for the reasons above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
black_midori Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 We recently started going to a Lego Club for the FLL (First Lego League) food challenge, and the BASIC kit for the younger kids is FANtastic - completely beyond anything I think of when I think of legos. It has wheels, lockers, hinges, angles, gears, etc - things that work with and for regular block legos to make cool working contraptions. The first thing we made was a flying swing, where the included motor actually spun the swing they made that was like a fair ride for lego people. They LOVED it!! I recommend going on the Lego site and looking at the new-age lego items! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in SW WA Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 We formed a Jr First Lego League team. This year is casual but next year (age 9) we'll build robots for the competitions. I am researching Mindstorms NXT. Thankfully Santa has a couple months to decide what we need. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 My kids got a tub of K'nex that included pieces that made it link-able to Legos. Be aware that K'nex comes in regular and "micro." The micro pieces are thinner and break more easily. My son got a set when he was seven and couldn't manipulate the pieces himself. I ended up assembling the roller coaster myself and broke a number of the pieces. He still doesn't build with them, but his sister has been building with the regular pieces successfully since she was about 5 1/2. What was my point? Goodness, I'm tired. Oh, if your child has any issues with small motor skills, he will probably find K'nex more difficult than Legos, but the regular size are easier. I second the idea of just getting lots more Legos and removing the instructions. I took a Human Development class in college and the professor's pet project was creativity -- he offered an instant A to anyone in any of his classes who could write a single question that could be used to test objectively for creativity. He said that rather than getting your child a small package of a large variety of toys (Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, etc.), you are better off picking one toy and getting a huge bin of it and throwing away the instructions and packaging. We had a "lego club" for a couple of semesters at co-op, and for lack of space, they were dumped out on quilts on the floor of the "Moms' room." They had two big bins and the kids, all ages, just went to town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Have you tried masking tape, string, elmers glue, paper clips, rubber bands, and lots of cardboard, straws, cardboard tubes, boxes, plastic containers? Having their own roll of masking tape and their own ball of string made a big difference in my children's visual-spacial and creative skills GRIN. Now two of them are taking welding and talking about making a dune buggy. They liked following the directions to make things with the legos when they were very small, but after they made something once, the directions were discarded and the legos went into the huge bin with all the other lego pieces. I introduced the gear legos fairly early on, and two of them did mindstorms. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.