Lego moms lets talk

[mommyoffive]

What are your favorite sets or lines? 

 

 

 

Where do you store your sets?  

 

Do you keep things displayed? 

 

Do you let the kids play with sets? 

 

 

 

Do you have the Lego Boost?   Do the kids like it? 

 

 

Do you have the Lego Mindstorms?   Do they kids play with it a ton?

 

 

 

[JustEm]

My favorite sets are the old knight sets we have from when I was a kid. They are all broken apart but the pieces are great to build with. Their baseplates used to be so much better.

 

I have one set that I display and that is my Dr who set. The kids display their creations. DD would like to keep her Disney princess ones displayed when she's not playing with them but they are so flimsy they inevitably break.

 

We got a Lego Mindstorms for free from at pet sitting client. The kids will get that at Christmas.

 

Never heard of Lego boost

[Momto6inIN]

My boys have outgrown Legos (not til mid teen years though!) and my younger girls are now getting into them. So we have a large variety of sets from Ninjago and The Hobbit to Frozen and Lego Friends! lol We also have a lot of the City Lego sets from when the boys were little.

 

When the sheer volume of pieces became unmanageable several years ago, I bought two 4 drawer plastic carts and glued a wide white laminate shelf over the top for their work space with a space in between the two carts for a chair. Legos are sorted by color and are in smaller individual tubs inside the drawers. We also have a drawer for Mindstorms although those didn't get played with very much til about 6th grade or so. In one of the drawers I have a binder with each pack of directions in it's own plastic sleeve for when they want to put together a set.

 

My rule is: Creations they want to continue playing with can stay on the work space top as long as they like, but if they are on the floor at the end of the week they have to get picked up. I don't care what they do with them beyond that :) The girls like to build sets and then use them to play imaginative games/scenes/dramas. Currently we have headless Elsa and some Hobbits inhabiting the ice palace along with some plastic horses. The boys did some of that but much more creative building than the girls do so far.

 

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[Lori D.]

DSs are in their 20s, so our experience is with older sets. They started off with DH and my ancient Lego sets, and then received some of the sea and mining adventure sets (late '90s/early '00s). Then the Star Wars sets started coming out and they really got into those. Not really into the "City" sets, or the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or other movie sets, but I think it varies from kid to kid what will strike their fancy.

 

They would build the set, keep it intact and display it for awhile, and then disassemble and put it in the big plastic bins (stored under their beds) with all the other Lego bricks. They loved to rummage and build their own inventions. They did briefly enjoy the Bionicles line. No Mindstorm here. Don't know what Boost is.

 

Lego was THE toy of choice for DSs from about age 6 through about age 13. In their teens, they would occasionally enjoy rummaging/creating, and enjoyed getting a very small set in a Christmas stocking as something to put together that morning. Legos were played with weekly, if not daily when DSs were at the height of their Lego-ing.

 

DSs really loved having a for-a-fee subscription to Brick Journal issues. They also loved getting the FREE Lego comic/magazines.

 

DSs also enjoyed ordering some speciality pieces made by BrickArms (a company NOT with Lego), that were weapons to scale with Lego.

 

When in middle school and early high school, DS#1 loved using the mini-figs on a big base plate to create animated movies.

 

 

Tips:

When rummaging, lay down a big, old sheet or blanket and let them dump the Lego bricks on that; when done, clean up is super easy by bringing together the 4 corners of the blanket into a "bag", and then dumping directly back into the plastic bin.

 

In a smaller bin or box, save all of the instruction booklets of how to build the different creations/sets. Those things are worth gold. ;) You can also print instructions.

 

DSs were also into K'Nex. Versa connectors are super for allowing you to cross-connect Lego and K'Nex. If you have a 3-D printer, you can download free patterns for printing your own! :)

 

Save your Legos once your kids are done -- the next family generation will love them. (DSs loved having the Legos from dad and mom!) And that's where those instruction booklets will come in especially handy!

 

You can order special pieces, or replace lost or broken pieces.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Lori D.

[mlktwins]

My boys are 12 and still into Legos.  They don't like to free build -- they like to build the sets and display them.  We are currently in the process of taking older sets apart and organizing them to store.  Just too many.  One of mine is into any of the speed champions cars -- he likes to display the cars in his room.  We get the yearly Christmas sets that they put out each year.  We have some City stuff, Star Wars, The Lego Movie, modular building sets (brick bank, etc), Minecraft and a few odds and ends.  The Minecraft they will actually take apart and rebuild, but not too often.  We are winding down on new sets though.  I'm getting them Mindstorms for Christmas (my dad gave me money so will be from him).  They want to collect the rest of the Minecraft sets.  I think my one son wants the double decker bus. 

 

They don't want to sell them, but I think we will be getting rid of just a few that weren't the best sets when built.  They also have a couple of "just pieces" sets we will keep.  

[mamaraby]

We own lots of Lego City, Star Wars, Friends, and Elves sets. Plus maybe Scooby Doo and a few others. I don’t know why we buy sets because my kids typically only keep them together for a short time until they are destroyed and repurposed into other things. As for where they are stored? All over the floor in the basement playroom. I never go in there. I have given up making suggestions on storing them. They have asked for some tables to put up because the floor is for young kids clearly.

 

Legos are by far the most universally loved toy by all three of my children. Even my 7th grade ds is still playing with Legos.

[athomeontheprairie]

I have girls (12, 10) Harry Potter is their favorite. My favorite were the castle sets mentioned above from my childhood. We don't have many of either of those.
Of the newer sets, we really like the city and creator sets. I have no intention of EVER selling our lego. It is the ONE toy I'm still annoyed that my parents didn't keep. :) These will be kept and passed down. (Though to be fair, my oldest is 12. By the time her baby sister (due later this month) is done with Lego she'll be what 24-30? I could easily be a grandparent by then.)

 

 

We store all the lego in one big giant tub (at this point, it's more like 2 big giant tubs!). Our house is small. In my ideal world, we would have space to sort the lego into drawers, by color or size or specialty pieces. Inside the large tub we have 2-3 smaller tubs that they've filled with pieces for their current builds, people, and really great pieces they don't want to lose :)

 

We display pieces on a dedicated book shelf for a time. They get played with. Destroyed and rebuilt. We do not keep sets seperate-it's okay if they mix.

I do have plans when they are finished with them (does that actually happen?) to sort them out and bag them and keep them as sets for their kids.
I keep lego building instructions in sheet protectors in a couple 3 ring binders. My binders are 3" and that's really too big for how heavy they are. (I also have kept most boxes... just because)

 

We have a mindstorm (with plans to get another one before the year is up) and the expansion set. And I'm fairly certain they've bought additional beams/axles off ebay. Yes, it gets a lot of use. But it is used differently than regular lego.

[JustEm]

Where they are stored... Ours are stored in Ikea's Trofast wooden storage unit with plastic bins. Plus 2 other huge Rubbermaid containers. Essentially there are buns for Minifigures, accessories, plants, big plates, vehicle pieces, building pieces like doors, walls, windows, etc. The 2 huge bins are random and not sorted yet.

[kbutton]

My kids organize their own Legos. One is all about the minifigures and weaponry, and the other is all about the vehicles. Their storage reflects their interests--they tend to find an organization that supports what they use most. One of my boys does tend to have little bits all over the room in spite of himself, but he is generally pretty messy, and he doesn't have great visual skills for finding those little pieces if they get loose.

 

They have tackle boxes for smaller pieces, and otherwise they use bins or rolling carts. They don't share sets. 

 

Booklets go in a file box or file cabinet. 

 

Minifigure boy likes Chima, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, and Star Wars.

Vehicle boy likes City, Technic, and Creator the best.

 

They both like Minecraft sets.

The both modify and free build.

[wathe]

My kids like to free build.  Model sets get built as per directions, played with for a while, then eventually wrecked and pieces go into the general shared pool.  We have an Ikea Trofast for pieces.  Parts are sorted in to bins:  "guys" (minifigs, animals and all their tiny accessories), wheels, motors, technic, and trains.  All the rest goes into a big rubbermaid.  Instruction books go into another bin.  This is the right level of sorting for us:  can find bits that are wanted easily enough, but sorting is not a big, complicated task. 

 

Mindstorms is stored separately in divided drawers.  Each kid has his own mindstorms set.  They are much more careful about keeping the mindstorms sets carefully sorted and catalogued.