A lot of our indoor playtime is spent manipulating Legos. Regardless of the numerous options available within our home’s play space, the kids have a definite, well established preference for their Legos. It amazes us that such a simple toy can appeal equally to a 3 year old and a 10 year old. And yes, even we TR parents enjoy playing with Legos.
We love that each Lego session veers off into its own direction. There are bakeries and veterinary clinics. We create robots and sea creatures. Or we mix all of it together for one crazy Lego world. Legos allow our children’s creativity to explode!
Lego sets can be costly. We save money by steering our kids towards the small plastic wrapped bags of Lego vehicles found on the check-out lines of Target (around $3.99,) or the small boxed items within the Lego aisle (around $4.99.) You can also pick up a solo Lego character at Target for $1.99. We purchase the larger sets for special occasions only. We rarely find Legos at garage sales; but when we are lucky, we snatch them up!
We have learned by trial to always save the directions that come with a specific Lego purchase. One of our kids will inevitably ask to have the original structure put back together and without the directions, it would be a hopeless task!
We spend the majority of our Lego time constructing wonderful little worlds, vehicles,or characters that interact with each other. Our kids make up delightful stories around their unique structures. The hardest part of the day comes at bedtime when everyone insists that their Lego creations should be saved for playtime tomorrow. Even though we have a large stash of Legos, if you don’t consistently break the blocks down, the play will become stagnant. Most of the time, our requests to take things apart are accepted with little argument, and our future play is enhanced.
Tip: We keep our larger Lego bricks (Duplos) in a see-through plastic bin. Our smaller Legos are in a garage sale purchased Lego table. If you don’t have a Lego table, we recommend that you find a shallow container for the smaller Lego bricks so that you can be easily sift through it for that perfect piece.
It is this big mix of Lego pieces, augmented with our collection of penguins, dinosaurs, cars, etc. that allows our kiddoes to really be creative and to produce truly original projects. We don’t really appreciate the gender specific line that Lego decided to market recently. We don’t think you need to appeal to girls with pink blocks and cupcake shops. The girls we know gravitate towards Legos regardless of the color of the bricks. We don’t consider Legos to be a “boy’s” toy, so we don’t see the need for a ‘girl’ alternative.
We hope to have Legos as a steady play choice in our home for many years. What is your favorite toy?
We LOVE LOVE LOVE LEGOS and I love how they push for creativity and imagination. I hate to admit it but they also have a computer game that is like legos on the computer called Minecraft. It’s a one time expense that can bring fun for a long time. This past summer kidlet built the hindenburg!