Lots of Lego questions!

[UncleEJ]

My boys are really starting to get into Lego and I have some questions.

 

1. How do your kids, especially younger, "play" with their Legos? What I mean is, if they get a new set, say a beach house, do they build it and actually play with it? Or just build and display? Something else?

 

2. How do you store your Legos? I know there are going to be as many answers to this question as there are responders, but I'm looking for general ideas. My hurdle seems to be a strong urge to keep sets together with their instructions. My kids have a huge Rubbermaid tote of Legos that my MIL saved from DH's childhood. So far, those just stay in the tote in a disorganized mess and the kids dump them out and play. Recently, though, they have started to get new sets. So far I have been keeping each set in a ziplock bag, separate from each other, because I feel like my boys will want to build them again and would be frustrated if they couldn't find the required pieces.

 

3. Do your kids rebuild a set after the initial build? What if something is lost?

 

4. How much and at what age did your kids start free building things?

 

5. I read somewhere (may have been here) that an elaborate organizational system is pointless unless the kids are motivated to keep it up. My OCD would really like every last piece sorted by size and color, but I know my kids would be of no help in keeping that up. At the same time I cannot stand the thought of just dumping the sets that I spent a lot of money on into the pile.

 

6. Is the plural of Lego, Legos or Lego?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[GSOchristie]

We have around 15,000 Legos (I'm assuming that is the plural), and I have just recently, after many years and many tries, found a system that works. I bought Rubbermaid tubs for each color that had enough to cover the bottom, so light grey, dark grey, black, white, wheels, brown, pink, and red. I bought smaller dollar store containers for all the other colors. I bought chip and dip trays for minifigs, which they separated by body part (we have over 100 minifigs, which seems like lot to me). I found the key is to get a container that is about 4x the volume of the Legos so they can dig around without dumping. I set up a shelf that runs the length of their room and the tubs go underneath, creations go on top. I keep the directions in page protectors in a heavy duty binder.

 

My eldest is a builder and my second is a player. Asher will build something and keep it together about a week, then take it apart or make modifications. Jax likes to create a scene and men and play that scenario for hours. Asher builds highly complex things and Jax builds simple things. I don't keep the sets separate, I did at the beginning but once we got about 5 sets they got mixed together. I make them clean them up twice a day, which means all stray Legos off the floor and into the tubs, creations in progress go on the shelf. Having the big tubs and color sorting has made it so Jax can easily clean up, we used to sort by type of piece which was too hard for him.

[GSOchristie]

http://www.google.com/search?q=clear+rubbermaid+tubs+blue+handles&client=safari&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=arTIUuK8A6mysASZ7IDoDA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAA&biw=768&bih=928#biv=i%7C6%3Bd%7CYaRyv9MTdtq30M%3A

 

This is what my tubs look like :).

[Murmer]

So for my two kids we try to build the item at least 1 time...then everything gets combined in a giant lego bin.  I keep the booklets of the kids to use to design but also just let them have free play.  But so far I only have bought little extra kits that are less than 10 bucks, don't know what I would do if I bought expensive kits.

[Melissa in Australia]

We have around 15,000 Legos (I'm assuming that is the plural),

The plural of Lego is Lego

[Heather in Neverland]

My boys are really starting to get into Lego and I have some questions.

 

1. How do your kids, especially younger, "play" with their Legos? What I mean is, if they get a new set, say a beach house, do they build it and actually play with it? Or just build and display? Something else?

 

They get a set, build it quickly, play for a few days, then delight in destroying it and using it to build other things.

 

2. How do you store your Legos? I know there are going to be as many answers to this question as there are responders, but I'm looking for general ideas. My hurdle seems to be a strong urge to keep sets together with their instructions. My kids have a huge Rubbermaid tote of Legos that my MIL saved from DH's childhood. So far, those just stay in the tote in a disorganized mess and the kids dump them out and play. Recently, though, they have started to get new sets. So far I have been keeping each set in a ziplock bag, separate from each other, because I feel like my boys will want to build them again and would be frustrated if they couldn't find the required pieces.

 

I use smallish Rubbermaid bins. If it is too large they can't find what they need and dump them everywhere. Stacks of smaller bins solved that for me. My kids have never rebuilt a set.

 

3. Do your kids rebuild a set after the initial build? What if something is lost?

 

No. After the initial build the set goes into the free play box to be used for other things.

 

4. How much and at what age did your kids start free building things?

 

My kids free play with Legos as soon as they are old enough to know not to swallow them.

 

5. I read somewhere (may have been here) that an elaborate organizational system is pointless unless the kids are motivated to keep it up. My OCD would really like every last piece sorted by size and color, but I know my kids would be of no help in keeping that up. At the same time I cannot stand the thought of just dumping the sets that I spent a lot of money on into the pile.

 

I let go of that a long time ago. We have several boxes of Legos that are almost all pieces from former sets. I tried an organizing system. Ha! Way too much work.

 

6. Is the plural of Lego, Legos, or Lego?

 

Legos! At least that's what we say. :)

[Dory]

We have this style of Lego bag to store our Lego. My boys play a little with their Lego after they build, but for them, the enjoyment is mostly in the building. They will follow the directions once or twice, and then we put the booklet in a drawer for safe keeping and they just add the new Lego to the rest of the pile and build from their own imaginations. Now and then they pull out the direction booklets because they want to build something specific. Every now and then they will build entire scenarios and act out a story with them. Usually it all just goes back into the back after they have made their interesting creations and showed them off.

 

My oldest has just started wanting to keep his creations out of the bag for a few days so that he can look at them and showcase them.

[Wilma]

A lot of the greatness of Lego is the working-it-out. I want to make a house, and It'll have a window in each side, how do I leave a space? What if I want a windowsill, how can I do that? There are so many problem solving things that go into even the simplest creations. How much more when two kids play at once! You want to make a castle? Cool, maybe we could have a drawbridge!

 

My SIL glues the Lego creations together so her boys can play with them, and I think she's totally ruining them. Ugh.

 

So I'd say yeah, keep the instructions (they're also available online, though, so no biggie if one gets ruined or lost), but don't fuss over mixing sets.

 

We have a kazillion Legos, purchased by the pound on eBay. My huz and I sorted them by type of piece - flats, double wides, plates, onesies and twosies, slanted pieces, etc. - regardless of color. My people have totally disregarded and only the remnants of our organizational goodness remain. But y'know what, it's okay.

 

We love Legos.

[Saraswati]

Ok, I found this little bit of info to explain:

 

 

• The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters
• LEGO must never be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a
  possessive pronoun, e.g. “LEGO’sâ€.
• When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never
  appear on its own. It should always be accompanied by a noun. For example, LEGO set, LEGO products, LEGO Group, LEGO play materials,
  LEGO bricks, LEGO universe, etc.
• The first time the LEGO brand name appears it must be accompanied
  by the Registered symbol ®.

 

 

 

[specialkmom]

My boys build a set, play for a bit and then it gets torn apart and strewn all over. I tried doing some sort of organizational system and gave up. They didn't care, so I don't either. Besides, when you're making your own creations you need pieces from any set you might have.

 

As for storage, we did have them in a tub and plastic bags. But, I got tired of having them dumped on the floor and then not picked up for days because they were building something. So this week I built them a huge box that slides under their bed. Just plywood and 1x4s. It's about 3ft wide 6ft long. Works great. They can pull it out during the day and slide it under at night. Very little clean up. And anything they are building thats too big for under the bed goes on a shelf.

 

I've always used legos for plural.

[Saraswati]

I tried to post some pictures of our Lego room, but it wouldn't let me. My dh manages the Legos - he has a method to his madness. He has some big drawer bins, and he keeps sets stores together by colors and sets. So he has a drawer set for each type that the kids collect: Lego City, Friends, Star Wars, Monster Fighters, Hobbit, Marvel Heroes and whatever else they have that I'm forgetting. Each section is then broken down into color, special parts (like wheels), etc, etc. 

 

We built long, skinny tables that go in rows in the middle of the room where the kids build - they generally do entire collections at once. Right now they have the Lego Friends collection built and set up like a town in the room. We just ordered all of the new Disney Princess sets that were released on the 1st of January - when they get here, Friends will get taken down and put back in their bucket section so the new sets can be built. 

 

Our youngest also collects Duplo. We keep those in big buckets sorted into blocks, people and animals. They're a lot easier to sort and put together because they're so big, so they aren't as organized.  

 

My husband keeps up with the Lego room. If it wasn't for him we'd just have a big room of blocks that the kids could go swim in. 

[athomeontheprairie]

I tried to post some pictures of our Lego room, but it wouldn't let me. My dh manages the Legos - he has a method to his madness. He has some big drawer bins, and he keeps sets stores together by colors and sets. So he has a drawer set for each type that the kids collect: Lego City, Friends, Star Wars, Monster Fighters, Hobbit, Marvel Heroes and whatever else they have that I'm forgetting. Each section is then broken down into color, special parts (like wheels), etc, etc.

 

We built long, skinny tables that go in rows in the middle of the room where the kids build - they generally do entire collections at once. Right now they have the Lego Friends collection built and set up like a town in the room. We just ordered all of the new Disney Princess sets that were released on the 1st of January - when they get here, Friends will get taken down and put back in their bucket section so the new sets can be built.

 

Our youngest also collects Duplo. We keep those in big buckets sorted into blocks, people and animals. They're a lot easier to sort and put together because they're so big, so they aren't as organized.

 

My husband keeps up with the Lego room. If it wasn't for him we'd just have a big room of blocks that the kids could go swim in.

I cannot fathom this many Legos (and I'm a tad jealous). Please post pictures :-)

[Alte Veste Academy]

My kids started with DUPLO and moved into LEGO when my oldest was about 5. We started with the generic tubs, and they did what they had always done with their DUPLO blocks, build from their own imagination. As they moved into the themed sets, they would assemble once, play awhile (until pieces majorly started coming apart), then those bricks would become part of the big collection to build from. Some things are displayed, but never for long. The longest set to be displayed was the Death Star, but even that has now become one with The Collective. LOL

 

The boys' LEGO collection is stored in a large number of Trofast bins from IKEA. They have roughly 500 gajillion. DD's collection (far fewer) are stored altogether in Expedit bins.

 

The phrase "my hurdle" needs to be erased from your vocabulary where LEGO is concerned. ;) I used to read LEGO organization threads here and think seriously? how is this a big deal? And then my boys hit 250 gajillion, and I did a board search about LEGO organization, determined to get the situation under control. That just did not go my way! This is a battle that you do not want to fight. I do not clean up or organize LEGO anymore. Period. (I do confiscate some every now and then. LOL) The boys own them and OWN them. They do it their way. As it turns out, sometimes they are fine to randomly throw them into bins and sometimes (usually before a major building spree) they are on board for the very laborious (but self-imposed and independent!) process of organizing them (by color, size, shape...totally up to them). Imposing a system of organization on them will needlessly frustrate you and/or potentially create a dynamic where they don't play as much because it is a hassle. I used to think the same thing about so much money being dumped into a big ol' messy pile of randomness, but unless you play LEGO and clean it up with them, it is so much easier to step aside and reinforce one rule only. "Clean up when you are finished playing."

 

Truthfully, there is (by far!) more brain power used in an imaginative build than in building from instructions. That is where the benefit really lies. And the more LEGO you have in The Collective, the more fodder for the imagination. Anyone can build from the instructions. If that was all my kids did, if the LEGO sets they had were all neatly separated with their instructions (which I also would have loved in the beginning!), I doubt they would have nearly the number that they have. I also doubt that my boys would love them as much as they do.

 

If you are worried about your boys being frustrated at not being able to rebuild, know that they will grow into the ability to sort and manage their own inventory. Do them the enormous favor of not letting the instructions get trashed/ripped though. My kids prefer to build from the paper instructions vs PDF, but have no choice because some of the oldest instructions (before we knew better) are just in shreds.

 

My kids do rebuild most things eventually. If pieces are lost, they will borrow from inventory or modify the design. You can purchase individual pieces from LEGO (somewhere on the site is a place where you can enter the set number and select individual pieces to replace), but for us pieces always turn up with enough searching, or they are able to adapt well enough that it doesn't matter.

 

ETA: The only sets that get stored with their instructions are the Winter Village sets. We have them all, they belong to the family, and they are reassembled yearly for our LEGO Christmas village.

[Berta]

We have a small LEGO table and a few buckets for storage. My daughter got the LEGO Cruise Ship for Christmas and just finished it tonight. She did it all by herself.

 

 

[Mom2TheTeam]

It sounds like mine are the only ones who build each set and rebuild it over and over.  My oldest is especially organized with it.  He keeps each set together really well.  He either displays it until he wants to break it down and rebuild or he keeps it altogether in a bag.  He likes to keep them displayed.  He is 8.  My two 6 year olds aren't as good at keeping their sets separate.  My son builds his and then breaks it down and makes other things with it.  His twin sister is just getting into Legos, the friends sets.  So far, she is keeping them well organized by set, but we'll see how long it lasts.  LOL.

 

As for play, mine build and then play pretend play with the sets together.  They enjoy it a lot.  It's all Lego all the time around here, especially since we had a Lego Christmas. 

 

I'm trying to figure out how to handle duplicate sets and finding places to display each child's personal sets.

[Incognito]

We keep the instructions and the kids have rebuilt a few things.  They keep things together they are worried about.  My kids like millions of smaller bins so they can have the different sets together instead of bigger bins.  We have a compromise of some small, some large, some dollar store organizer boxes.  Mostly all clear.

 

The plural of Lego differs by location.  Midwest was Legos, West Coast is Lego.

 

I have not made it really possible to display numerous lego sets.  I don't want them to sit collecting dust like that.  So the kids build them, they keep them precious for a little while (one or two), then they get destroyed and the parts get used with other things (but usually from the same general line).

 

HTH

 

ETA: Upthread someone mentioned the kids organizing it themselves - that is key.  When I clean up the legos I'm always putting them in the "wrong" spot or bin or whatever.  So, wonderfully, I pretty much never clean them up.  I just offer my cleaning services and they run to do it themselves. :)

[Χά�ων]

We keep every book, I have books from sets I had when I was growing up. For the past few years DS has been keeping the Legos together when he finishes them. When we moved I bought 2 gallon bags and broken eat set into large pieces and put the pieces and books in the bag. If you didn't want to have a general dump bucket this is an option.

 

Right now DS has all his sets set up into scenes that he creates and recreates. He loves the police sets and the castle/kingdom sets.

[MistyMountain]

We are new to legos too. I asked this on another site and most people said they build a set once and then they get mixed in. My plan was to keep sets together and then just buy sets on craigslist that are mixed for building things from their imagination. So far my son is interested in playing with his sets and building them again. He really likes all the city legos sets and I can see him building his trucks, and helicopters again. My oldest daughter was interested in building some of the sets that were bagged up that got broken from my son playing with them. For now I am going to bag them up separately with instructions or get small containers for them but we will see what the future brings maybe they will end up mixed.

[kroe1]

Run away as fast as you can to the Betty Ford Clinic. Call an exterminator to remove those LEGO pieces left behind. If even one piece remains, it reproduces by asexual reproduction. The LEGO ultimate goal is to destroy your vacuum cleaner and your feet. Be strong; be safe.

[kiwik]

The plural of Lego is Lego

Here (NZ) too. Legos sounds odd. I use a plastic set of drawers with shallow a4 drawers that can be pulled out and are shallow enough to riffle through.

[gerka528]

My girls build their Lego sets, play with them for a few days, then the littles come and destroy them.  I have tried to keep them in their own bins so they can be rebuilt, but they usually end up back in the giant tub.  We save all of the instruction booklets, but the sets are rarely rebuilt because they hate digging for the pieces.

[garddwr]

Run away as fast as you can to the Betty Ford Clinic. Call an exterminator to remove those LEGO pieces left behind. If even one piece remains, it reproduces by asexual reproduction. The LEGO ultimate goal is to destroy your vacuum cleaner and your feet. Be strong; be safe.

Love this!

 

I admit that though I think Elvis are awesome we own only diplomas.

 

Ok, I looked back at what autocorrect did to that last sentence and it made me laugh so I'm going to leave it there. 

 

As I was saying, legos (this thing tried to change that to Elvis again...) are great, but I just don't feel up to wrangling 20,000 tiny pieces not to mention worrying about choking hazards so we have stuck with duplos. My eight year old combines them with magnatiles to make some pretty amazing creations,  mostly boats and aircraft. The magnatiles can be stuck vertically between the bumps on the duplos, he uses them for tail fins, sails, etc. 

 

We don't organize the duplos, they're just in two big storage bins.

[momto10blessings]

 

Ok, I found this little bit of info to explain:

 

 

• The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters
• LEGO must never be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a

  possessive pronoun, e.g. “LEGO’sâ€.

• When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never

  appear on its own. It should always be accompanied by a noun. For example, LEGO set, LEGO products, LEGO Group, LEGO play materials,

  LEGO bricks, LEGO universe, etc.

• The first time the LEGO brand name appears it must be accompanied

  by the Registered symbol ®.

</p>

So "Pick up your Legos" should actually be

 

"Pick up your LEGO"????

 

Just doesn't sound right

[UncleEJ]

Thank you for all the great advice! I think, right now, we kind of have the best of both words. They have a large bin (45-50 gallon) full of Lego that they can free build from. So far, I have been keeping the set I buy them separate in large zip locks. They like to rebuild sets at this point so I will keep them apart for now. At some point, in the future, I would like to probably have them all sorted. I know that if I do it now it will just be a headache!

[UncleEJ]

My kids started with DUPLO and moved into LEGO when my oldest was about 5. We started with the generic tubs, and they did what they had always done with their DUPLO blocks, build from their own imagination. As they moved into the themed sets, they would assemble once, play awhile (until pieces majorly started coming apart), then those bricks would become part of the big collection to build from. Some things are displayed, but never for long. The longest set to be displayed was the Death Star, but even that has now become one with The Collective. LOL

 

The boys' LEGO collection is stored in a large number of Trofast bins from IKEA. They have roughly 500 gajillion. DD's collection (far fewer) are stored altogether in Expedit bins.

 

The phrase "my hurdle" needs to be erased from your vocabulary where LEGO is concerned. ;) I used to read LEGO organization threads here and think seriously? how is this a big deal? And then my boys hit 250 gajillion, and I did a board search about LEGO organization, determined to get the situation under control. That just did not go my way! This is a battle that you do not want to fight. I do not clean up or organize LEGO anymore. Period. (I do confiscate some every now and then. LOL) The boys own them and OWN them. They do it their way. As it turns out, sometimes they are fine to randomly throw them into bins and sometimes (usually before a major building spree) they are on board for the very laborious (but self-imposed and independent!) process of organizing them (by color, size, shape...totally up to them). Imposing a system of organization on them will needlessly frustrate you and/or potentially create a dynamic where they don't play as much because it is a hassle. I used to think the same thing about so much money being dumped into a big ol' messy pile of randomness, but unless you play LEGO and clean it up with them, it is so much easier to step aside and reinforce one rule only. "Clean up when you are finished playing."

 

Truthfully, there is (by far!) more brain power used in an imaginative build than in building from instructions. That is where the benefit really lies. And the more LEGO you have in The Collective, the more fodder for the imagination. Anyone can build from the instructions. If that was all my kids did, if the LEGO sets they had were all neatly separated with their instructions (which I also would have loved in the beginning!), I doubt they would have nearly the number that they have. I also doubt that my boys would love them as much as they do.

 

If you are worried about your boys being frustrated at not being able to rebuild, know that they will grow into the ability to sort and manage their own inventory. Do them the enormous favor of not letting the instructions get trashed/ripped though. My kids prefer to build from the paper instructions vs PDF, but have no choice because some of the oldest instructions (before we knew better) are just in shreds.

 

My kids do rebuild most things eventually. If pieces are lost, they will borrow from inventory or modify the design. You can purchase individual pieces from LEGO (somewhere on the site is a place where you can enter the set number and select individual pieces to replace), but for us pieces always turn up with enough searching, or they are able to adapt well enough that it doesn't matter.

 

ETA: The only sets that get stored with their instructions are the Winter Village sets. We have them all, they belong to the family, and they are reassembled yearly for our LEGO Christmas village.

Everything here is so helpful! Thank you for taking the time to write this all out.

[UncleEJ]

I tried to post some pictures of our Lego room, but it wouldn't let me. My dh manages the Legos - he has a method to his madness. He has some big drawer bins, and he keeps sets stores together by colors and sets. So he has a drawer set for each type that the kids collect: Lego City, Friends, Star Wars, Monster Fighters, Hobbit, Marvel Heroes and whatever else they have that I'm forgetting. Each section is then broken down into color, special parts (like wheels), etc, etc.

 

We built long, skinny tables that go in rows in the middle of the room where the kids build - they generally do entire collections at once. Right now they have the Lego Friends collection built and set up like a town in the room. We just ordered all of the new Disney Princess sets that were released on the 1st of January - when they get here, Friends will get taken down and put back in their bucket section so the new sets can be built.

 

Our youngest also collects Duplo. We keep those in big buckets sorted into blocks, people and animals. They're a lot easier to sort and put together because they're so big, so they aren't as organized.

 

My husband keeps up with the Lego room. If it wasn't for him we'd just have a big room of blocks that the kids could go swim in.

This sounds like a dream come true!

[Dmmetler]

We are a Lego family-seriously, we plan vacations to go to AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) conventions and have hit 5 Lego stores in a week before.

 

There are a small number of sets that stay built-DH just got the Troll mountain Fortress for Christmas (which is long retired), and I don't think his small horde of Lego orcs and trolls are going to be homeless anytime soon. DD has the Ninjago dragons that stay together as well, and I have The Mines of Moria and the Hobbit hole set up by my computer.

 

Everything else, though is fair game for building and rebuilding. DD and I attempted to make a knitting loom out of Lego this morning (out of frustration, because the theoretical adaptable set I bought at Michaels does NOT work). She has constructed most of the Odyssey out of Legos, does a lot of building for history, and in general, Lego is used daily. I host a mythology group at my house, and have easily had 10 kids building with Lego at once.

 

We have three, count them, three multi-bin storage units, the kind normally used for preschool toys. Almost all the bins hold Legos sorted by type and/or color. We also have a file-sized box of Duplo that are used alongside Lego. Bins also contain small toys used with Lego (toobs small animals and figures, some Playmobil, small dolls, and so on). Three fishing tackle boxes contain small pieces, like little animals, plants, and weapons. We also have a stack of project boxes that contain pieces pulled out for a work in progress-the rule on those is that they need to be left alone, as does anything on a shelf-but anything in the bins or on the floor is fair game-if you start a creation and leave it on the floor, you can't complain if someone else takes it apart to use the pieces. The floor must be clear before we do anything on weekends or before friends come over to play.

[CAMom]

I snapped a few pictures on my phone to show what our LEGO life looks like with one 8 year old:

 

This is part of his current LEGO City built mostly with actual LEGO City sets:

 

 

 

Here I just turned a few degrees to get the rest of it. I make him leave a path between the two so that I can get into the room. The bonus room is basically a loft type family room. When we bought this house, I promised him he could have a large LEGO area. He keeps trying to expand it. You can see him in the corner of the sofa playing Minecraft. ;)

 

 

This is the bookcase in his room. Most of the baskets contain LEGO pieces. The white box in the bottom left corner has all of his instruction booklets. The small containers on the bottom shelf store minifigures and tires.

 

 

This is an IKEA 2 X 2 Expedit. It is supposed to have a LEGO board glued into each cubby and two side by side glued to the top but he won't let me do it. :lol: This was supposed to keep his built items off of the floor and protected from us and the dogs. He just uses it to put aside pieces he thinks he is going to need soon.

 

 

I've just given up and resigned myself that the LEGO will never be truly contained but he spends (and his siblings did) hours and hours and hours of imaginative play with them. Now that we have a bigger house, I just have a rule that they have to stay upstairs so that any guests we may have don't have to navigate through a mine field.

[fdrinca]

I let it all go. It's the kids' domain. I tried helping them organize, helping them keep kit pieces together, keeping built pieces in one place...and they wanted none of it. They're happy creating their scenarios with their figures and special pieces, and since they're happy, I don't try to sort their pieces by brick type any longer. Win-win. BUT: all three Lego-players enjoy playing the same way. I can't imagine the terror if one were really keen on keeping kits together, organizing, etc. 

[Rosie_0801]

I keep our Lego in one of those baby wading pools. Mostly the boy sits happily right in the middle.

[happypamama]

Didn't read the other replies, but my kids have a lot of Legos.  Typically, they build the set as it comes in the box, with the instructions that are included.  They play with the set for a while and have a great time with it.  Often, things get broken, or they get purposely taken apart, after a while, and then the pieces are reused to create their own things.  Then they'll decide to build a set again, and yeah, sometimes pieces have been lost.  Lego is AWESOME at replacing pieces, though!  It's very easy and pretty inexpensive to replace things, and a couple of times, if it's only been a couple of pieces, Lego has sent them to me at no charge, which is really good customer service -- small expense on their part for a lifelong customer who has many of their sets.

 

I don't know how old DS1 was when he started building his own things -- 6 or 7?  I really don't remember.  I know my 5yo has been building his own things for a while.  He takes the minifigs apart and creates new characters, and they're forever building ships or robots or who knows what with random pieces from the Technic sets and all.

 

Storage -- high shelves for things they don't want broken, and a big bin for loose pieces.  As well as all over the house; I find Legos in all sorts of random spots.  From time to time, they sort them into bags by color or by set, if they are trying to build something specific.  Oh, and DD has a couple of the general building sets that have pink and purple and such in them; she keeps them in her room, separate from the other general bin, I think.

 

Great toys!  I don't regret for a second the money that has been sunk into Legos -- nothing gets as much play time as Legos in my house, except for maybe Duplos.

[happypamama]

Run away as fast as you can to the Betty Ford Clinic. Call an exterminator to remove those LEGO pieces left behind. If even one piece remains, it reproduces by asexual reproduction. The LEGO ultimate goal is to destroy your vacuum cleaner and your feet. Be strong; be safe.

 

Hahahahahaha, oh my goodness, that is SO TRUE!  They really do reproduce in dark corners.  Oh, and they teleport themselves too.

[Night Elf]

My ds17 has been collecting Lego blocks/sets for about 12-13 years. In all that time, he has kept the blocks separated by colors and special blocks together. In the beginning, I guess sets were incorporated into the storage containers for free play. But honestly, for as long as I remember, he has kept his sets together in ziploc bags and the instructions in a box. Also, pretty much from the beginning, he has maintained a city layout display. He built items to sit in his display. He would change buildings/vehicles to change the layout. He now has a 6-foot table that is pretty much a city with purchased sets of buildings and vehicles. Although he no longer builds, unless he decides to change a building, I feel pretty confident that he'll always be a Lego fanatic. He'll need a dedicated room for them when he is an adult. He could certainly use one now.