What do you do w Legos?

[mommyatty]

DH just bought DD the Lego Hogwarts castle. This means I will end up building it. DD doesn’t have the skills yet and DH has no interest.

I’m not wild about putting this sucker together only to have it taken back apart and putting it in the box in pieces. Do any of you glue your Legos together? If so, how do you do it?

[CrazyLucky]

We have gazillions of Legos. DS is 8 and does like to build them. We used to always build them together, but now he can pretty much do it on his own. We would let him display them for a little while and then break them down. I've never used the Kragle on them.

Maybe go ahead and build it, leave it for a while, and then break it down before Christmas. And that way, when she's a little older, you can build it again, with her.

[xctsclrx]

I love legos. We build and leave out, but do not glue. My kids started out needing help and now they take them apart and rebuild.

[186momx]

My brother never glued. He built or had help building and then played with them for a while before taking them apart and building something else out of the pieces. My mom kept them in a big under bed storage tote with wheels along with the instructions.

[twinmomma]

Nov 6, 2018 10:48:51 GMT -5 CrazyLucky said:

We have gazillions of Legos. DS is 8 and does like to build them. We used to always build them together, but now he can pretty much do it on his own. We would let him display them for a little while and then break them down. I've never used the Kragle on them.

Maybe go ahead and build it, leave it for a while, and then break it down before Christmas. And that way, when she's a little older, you can build it again, with her.

Thank you for this laugh!

[2chatter]

She may surprise you - DS (6) builds sets above his age level alone. LEGO provides step by step directions and bags things in smaller projects.

When complete they sit out for a bit then go into ziplocks partially broken down, with the instruction booklet. Bags go in Ikea soft side zip cases under the bed. We pull the bags out from time to time and he rebuilds.

[sandandsea]

No kragle! We don’t glue anything as ds loves building and rebuilding. We store them in separate plastic cases to try to keep sets together.

[sandandsea]

This is what we use to store them.
IRIS Portable Project Case, 6 Pack, Clear www.amazon.com/dp/B01H2NWHXU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_6LC4BbXXY3G8Q

The line up nicely on a closet shelf. We have 12 cases and have a few sets in each case.

[freezorburn]

Or you could leave it in the box until she is older and can appreciate the build process.

Or you can resell it someday. Stuff like that gets better prices if it is still in box

[mommyatty]

Nov 6, 2018 16:39:03 GMT -5 freezorburn said:

Or you could leave it in the box until she is older and can appreciate the build process.

Or you can resell it someday. Stuff like that gets better prices if it is still in box

That so will not fly. She’s wanted this set for months. It’s just that her idea of building with Legos is to sit there and watch me build it while randomly taking pieces and playing with them. Usually whatever piece I need next, lol.

[sunbutter]

I don’t build anything. If they aren’t ready, it goes on the shelf.

With the exception of the Christmas sets. I build them and disassemble them every year. I enjoy the process.

When DS started building and refusing to take apart and mix, we bought lots of large plastic boxes, moved and remodeled a basement we now call the Lego lair.

You probably shouldn’t take advice from me.

[waverly]

DS is not that into Legos. The kits have a ton of pieces and like 200 steps, so he gets frustrated. Paired with some minor gross motor delays, and Legos are just not a great combo for him. Albeit they are great for his fine motor practice.

I have put up a few kits from his birthday last year. One I re-gifted him for his current birthday. He helped a bit, but I ended up building a lot. Then I threatened him with not taking it apart, so it is still together. He is old enough that he leaves it alone, but previously would have destroyed it. I want to keep it together for a long time until we break it down since it took us an hour + to build.

mommyatty , we did that method a few times until I put my foot down. Now we do the leave until they are older method. He didn't realize that I put the Legos up because he had so many gifts (class birthday party), and I snuck them up. I don't buy them for him.


I think he would be better at it in another year. In the meantime, I might do the last kit I had up over the winter when everyone is bored and wait it out. Once he really gets into them I will look into storage for them. Some king of small clean plastic drawer thing maybe with the picture of the kit on the drawer is kind of what I am thinking.  We only have 2 sets built or taken apart at the moment, and the first set was very small and not a lot of pieces.  

[freezorburn]

It was a long process to get DS to be able to build independently ....

My 2 cents on developing Lego skills, FWIW --

There's free play, which you can do parallel with your child, or just observe. My parenting coaches advised that I comment with statements/observations, rather than ask questions. So, instead of "what are you making?" you might say "I see you've added a window on this side." I think it was meant to reinforce that his choices/creative freedom was the priority, rather than imposing any judgments or pre-conceived notions on my part.

For building a kit, my son really needed smaller steps broken down further. Also at that stage I think he was in need of large amounts of quality time, so this is how we did it -- I had to break down for him how to "read" a page of instructions. Even though there are no words.

    1. Find the pieces in the little box at the top of the page. We learned words to describe the pieces, or made up our own terms to describe what we were looking for.

    2. Make it look like the picture.

    3. Check your work. Does it look like the picture? We can only move on if we have done the step correctly.

And then we would take turns. I would do a page, he would do a page. Then gradually he was able to do more on his own, and if he ran into problems I could help him troubleshoot. But it took a very long time.

(ETA: ^This is a lot less frustrating (and more rewarding) if you start off with one of the smaller kits)

(ETA2: when it was my turn, important to slow down and narrate what I was doing)

Whether or not you decide to build the castle now, or save it for later, that's up to you. 

If you have storage space, apparently you can always get a better price if you have original box, full set, and instructions in good condition. It's crazy how there's a robust secondary market for this stuff.

Example: local Lego convention last month -- we got an older edition Hogwarts Express with all pieces intact, instructions in excellent shape. But because there was no box, it was half the original retail price.

[sandandsea]

Also try LEGO juniors, megabloks, and the duplo sets if they have a hard time. Ds is very into legos and always has been. He builds sets alone that are well above his age, however, all kids are different and there are lots of options if you need easier sets or bigger pieces or fewer steps.

[mommyatty]

sandandsea- I might put DD in charge of building a kit for her brother. I think that would appeal to her since she loves lording the extra 2 years she’s had on this planet over her brother. Plus it gets her to build a juniors thing.

freezorburn- great breakdown! I’m going to try the I do a page/you do a page thing. She would like the attention that requires us to shower on her. Plus maybe I can make DH do that!

[waverly]

freezorburn, I like the one page each idea. He would do maybe 5 pages and get frustrated, and then I would do 10 pages or something and hand off while he was doing something else, so this way he is engaged the whole time. I think he got your other steps.

[campermom]

DS makes the kit one time then takes them apart and they all go in a giant bin. He likes to play with them during quiet time in his room. He also keeps some in the van and I hear him making light saber sounds on long rides. I personally do not buy them but he gets them as birthday gifts.