How do you (your dc) sort Lego? If you do at all!

[ScoutTN]

By type or size of piece?

By color?

By theme or set?

 

How's that for a divisive and controversial topic? :tongue_smilie:

 

 

DS doesn't have enough yet to need to sort it, but we have noticed other people's bins, drawers etc. 

Right now our only Lego organization is that is has a specific box and no pieces are to be on the floor in the path from the door to the bed when DS goes to bed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GSOchristie]

We have over 10,000 Legos. That is not an exaggeration. I have tried every sorting system you can think of, by sets, by themes, by brick color, by size and shape, with ice cube trays, with chip and dip trays, with a tackle box, with ziplock bags. They are now in a gigantic pile in a walk-in closet that I cleared out solely to be used for Legos. Yes, I have a closet (6x6) dedicated to Legos. But it keeps them in one place and he can spread them out to see them.

[Miss Peregrine]

No sorting. No way.

[Lara in Colo]

Sort?  I am happy if they are off the floor into one giant rubbermaid container so I don't step on them at 2am.

 

 sort...giggle giggle.... yeah right

[Moxie]

We tried it once. Huge waste of time. I see all these pictures on the internet of Legos sorted by color but that is just not how my kids play. I swear, most of their good ideas come from digging through the giant boxes.

[mmpmelmack]

We do sort by color, and then regular brick from specials. We use 4 of those plastic carts with drawers, on top of the cabinets is a eice of plywood for a building top. We also have 2 larger 8 drawer cabinets on the sides. Then the robotic sets are in their own travel bag.........then the duplos have their own storage cabinet. We have about 25,000 legos and about 1200 duplos. We think it makes it easier to find pieces to build when they are sorted! Dh and I will resort them every three months or so to help maintain order!

[vonfirmath]

We tried it once. Huge waste of time. I see all these pictures on the internet of Legos sorted by color but that is just not how my kids play. I swear, most of their good ideas come from digging through the giant boxes.

 

I suspect those pictures are mostly of AFOLs -- Adult Fans of Lego.

 

As you get to be an adult, you start making your own creations and having a good idea of where you are going when you start. So you are looking for a specific piece and need a filing system that will get you there

 

(though it seems that most get to the point where they don't sort by color. They sort by type of part, finding the color in that is easier than finding a red 1-spot piece in a sea of red pieces, say.

 

Of course, then that overfills its boundaries and they have to start sorting by color families and such again. So all the red-family 2x4 bricks in this container, the brown-family in another. etc.

[Χά�ων]

Hero Factory and Bionacles in one massive rubber maid container the rest in another 5 or 6 containers.

[sillymommy]

We started with 2 Swoop bags. DS said he hated trying to sift through all the Legos looking for just the right piece. So, on his request, we sorted them by type. He chose the categories--bricks by "ones" & "twos," flats, translucent, technic, etc. They are all in an Ikea Trofast system.

 

This system worked really well for several months, but as he & the other kids left things out that they were working on, playing with, etc., we ended up with more & more spread out on the floor of our Lego room. (Yes, we have an entire room for Legos. It's a guest room when we have guests). So, when it came time to clean for our summer visitors, I told ds to sort & tidy up the Lego room. He didn't do it, so all Legos that were on the floor were put away until Aug 1 when he'll have another chance to sort & put the away.

[Mommyof4ks]

We sort by color, and we have a bin for people and weapons.

[LAS in LA]

We use this  http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/053518/c85cbb8c9cb233d3f07b3420  It's great for ds5 since there is almost no cleanup required.  That's my gushy review at the bottom of the RR page.  :)

 

Ds10 has his own sorting system (by color, I think) under his lofted bed.  I don't go there.  :) 

[RoundAbout]

We have a huge underbed Lego bin. Definitely no sorting. DS is hugely creative with his builds and I think the lack of sorting has helped as he will incorporate cool pieces as he finds them. He does have a little sandwich size box for any small special pieces he wants to keep separate. The main thing is that the Lego bin be very shallow so searching is easy.

[jenn-]

Ours are sorted. The ones near xyz child's pile must be said xyz child's Legos even if by near you mean halfway across the room on the floor. This has to be their sorting method currently if you could overhear some if their "play" sessions.

[skeeterbug]

Ikea Trofast by colour, like this...

 

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/organizing-legos-part-3-creating.html

 

But we don't have enough yet to need two sets of drawers, we just have one and put a divider in each drawer to separate the colours. So two colours per drawer, one section for wheels/doors, etc and one for people. It's still new to us but so far working. We've tried sorting by brick size and type before, that didn't work for us.

[Arcadia]

We sort by type:

- Mindstorm in a big box

- wheels in a medium box

- techno pieces in a medium box

- figurines in a small box

- all the rest in a big box

[LucyStoner]

Mindstorms has its own bin.  Everything else is all mixed together in a number of large bins.  We have many, many legos.  

 

Sorting is futile.  I don't like to waste time on things that are futile.  So no more trying to organize legos.  

[Dory]

I tried sorting. I tried sorting by color in bins. I tried sorting by collection In divided drawers. I tried using shelved bins and letting him sort it his way (block size) in hopes that if he did it himself it would stay that way a little better. It was better, but it still didn't stay that way for very long. In the end I just got a couple swoop bags and keep them in big piles in those.

[gardenmom5]

for awhile they were sorted by color.  we had instructions, and it was faster to just look for a particular color piece than paw through the whole bucket.

[Night Elf]

Large theme sets that are not currently set up are kept together in gallon sized ziploc bags with the instructions.

The majority of bricks are separated by color.

All the people are kept together.

All the special pieces like chrome grilles, windows, doors and other odd shaped pieces are kept together.

All instructions are kept together unless they are in the gallon sized bag with the theme set.

 

I'll add that this system has been in place since my son was a young child. He likes order and could think better when he knew where to find the pieces he needed.

[amo_mea_filiis.]

The kids keep their pieces in their own bins. Ds puts a sheet on the floor and dumps on that to play.

 

All of my sets stay together so there's no sorting needed.

[kroe1]

We have a Lego sorter. It has trays. Each tray has progressively smaller holes. Handfuls of Legos go in the top and then shake down to its prospective tray. Since I have had Lego loving kiddos for over 30 years, it is essential to have some sort of organization.

 

Nevertheless, I have about decided that kiddos will have to glue together all future sets as I am tired of the pieces.

[retiredHSmom]

Ikea Trofast by colour, like this...

 

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/organizing-legos-part-3-creating.html

 

But we don't have enough yet to need two sets of drawers, we just have one and put a divider in each drawer to separate the colours. So two colours per drawer, one section for wheels/doors, etc and one for people. It's still new to us but so far working. We've tried sorting by brick size and type before, that didn't work for us.

Ours are sorted by color into trofast bins just like this except we have 4 trofast units full. We have three bins if gray and they are subsisted by size using a box4blox sorter. Same for black.

 

We also custom built a top for the bookcases that holds the, together and has a lip around the top edge to keep Lego pieces from falling off. It was a life changing decision. Now I rarely sweep even a single piece of Lego off the floor.

[KungFuPanda]

I can't imagine a worse punishment than having to sort Legos! We just used a bin. DS always sat on a blanket so he could dump out the pieces, then at clean-up, just pick up the blanket and funnel the pieces back into the bin.

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

Ds has more then a normal collection of Lego's (all of his and his 2 brothers) so we needed to take steps to organize them into some sort of workable solution.

We had 2 rolling carts:

1 with 3 large drawers that held his black pieces....large medium and small

1 with small drawers for people, clear pieces, weapons and hand held items, wheels

 

We had 2 large bin organizers with 9 bins each. The legos were organized into colors or color combinations.

 

Finally he had a large bin for the Legos he was working with or for the pieces he built and were playing with.

 

All the drawers could come out so he could set the ones he needed on the floor with him.

[Doodle]

I tried sorting by color for awhile, then by type. Neither worked for long since they only remained sorted if I were the one cleaning them up. Now everything is in one large bin. Doodle will often have a smaller stash of his favorite pieces.

[Zuzu822]

We have three of these: http://www.amazon.com/IRIS-6-Case-Workstation-Storage-Plates/dp/B0031P85VC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374674599&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+drawers

 

and two of these: http://www.amazon.com/IRIS-3-Drawer-Sorting-Building-Removable/dp/B007HON9QY/ref=pd_bxgy_hg_img_z

 

Each suitcase or drawer has a sorting tray inside it. They are sorted by set, per the boys' request.  They do a decent job keeping them organized.  We do have one drawer for "basic" bricks sorted by color.

 

The giant Lego Education space and air set has its own large blue bin.

[Amy in NH]

Base plates and flats

People parts, animals, and tools/weapons/etc

Windows, doors, and other building pieces

Tires, steering wheels and other vehicle parts

Directions

Everything else

[Dmmetler]

We have three, count them, THREE sets of the early childhood toy bins, plus a lego project box stack and three tackle boxes. And yes, they are sorted. Small pieces (weapons, plant parts, and little animals, mostly) are in the tackle boxes. The project boxes contain kits currently being worked on or that DD wants to leave as a kit (and one project box has her favorite Mini-figs and pieces-the ones she doesn't want scattered into the other bins.

 

One set of bins are special pieces-doors/windows, wheels, technic pieces, baseplates, minifig body parts, accessory items, larger animals, and so on.

 

After that, they're sorted by colors, and for some of the colors that often have specialty pieces, basic bricks are sorted separate from the specialty parts.

 

There are several bins that hold Playmobil and other toys that get used in conjunction with Lego. There are also two small tables and a bookshelf that hold completed creations that are not to be taken apart-right now, that's mostly the Ninjago dragons.

 

DD does a great deal of MOC building and goes to AFOL events and workshops frequently (along with a parent because officially the adult has to be the registered participant, but like her Herpetological society meetings, I go for her and end up sitting at the back with an e-book while she actively participates).

 

I've had as many as 8 kids all building at the same time, and they're really good about putting the pieces back, at least by color (some of the other sorts are rather arbitrary and I can understand confusion). I hear a lot of "oh, my kids wouldn't keep up with it" from parents who's child has NO trouble sorting as they put away at my house.