Let Go My Lego! (Lego in General)

Member Name: shroud

Product:	Lego in General
Date:	20/11/07 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: imagination building, educational

Disadvantages: smaller pieces easily mislaid

Just on the extremely unlikely off chance someone has NEVER encountered this product before, I will endeavour to first explain what this product is and then go to sing its praises and faults. Quite simply, Lego are building bricks. What makes these different from traditional building bricks and blocks, however, is the fact that these click together to sturdily form a row, and complex, tall shapes can be made. Lego comes in many different forms, Lego Duplo being the largest sized bricks, aimed at toddlers and preschoolers, and smaller pieces branded Lego designed for the older child. Lego is designed so that any piece of Lego can also fit with any other, thus Lego fit with Duplo and vice versa, and also old Lego from say 1955 will fit Lego made today.The basic building brick idea has also been expanded to include themed play sets, robotics, computer games, and more, but for the sake of this review, I will concentrate on classic Lego.

This is a toy of great imagination building. With tubs full of various sizes of bricks in primary colours, and perhaps a few doors and windows thrown in, what can be built is limited only by the child's imagination. I myself never had these as a child, but encountered them at after school car programs and the like. Having enjoyed playing with the smalls sets purchased by these schemes, when I had my own children I decided to get my sons some Lego for their Christmas one year. Having one child aged 4 and another just turned 6, I decided to get them each a set that complemented the other, and a Lego table. This was simply a table made by Little Tikes that had a reversible inset top on it. One side of the top was smooth, while the other had the Lego bumps on it so that it acted as a base plate for the young engineer at play. Two sides of the table had deep drawers for putting the Lego in. I wish I had kept that table, as my younger two are now Lego aged, and could have made good use of it!

For the four year old, I purchased a bucket of the Duplo sized bricks. This was not the huge ones aimed at infants, but rather pieces that are slightly larger than normal larger Lego, and without the teensy pieces that regular Lego can have in the bucket. For the older child, I got a starter bucket of Lego, which had slightly smaller pieces than his brothers, and came with windows and doors and wheels. From these two buckets of such simple pieces, many adventures sprang. One afternoon they sat down and built an elaborate "space station" and "rocket ship", and played for hours with these. Another day built a city of skyscrapers and fantasy cars. Again, and again, the bricks came out, and hours were spent building simple, yet elaborate constructions. All the while, not only were they using their imaginations, but improving their dexterity, and learning geometry as well as simple principles of engineering.

The downsides, are primarily cost as well as the Lost Lego phenomenon. While a single bucket or box of Lego may not be expensive in itself, the issue comes from the young Lego fan wanting to expand hiss sets. It is these add ons that really begin to rack up the costs if purchased. Cool! You can buy Lego and build a zoo.......whoa....the zoo play set is HOW MUCH?????? maybe I will just buy the animal packs instead....The airport is How Much???????? Sorry, kid, no jumbo jet today! Of course, there is no need to buy these play sets, you can simply buy buckets with more doors and windows, and wheels, and hope the child doesn't spy the Playmobil looking sets that are made of Lego and for Lego. Fat chance!

The Lost Lego is another downside. Somewhere there seems to be a law written about Lego. It is "Thou shalt step on a piece of Lego with your bare feet in the dark, and it shall be where no Lego has even been before." These HURT! Your vac will also find bits and pieces. Even if you are scrupulous about putting these straight back into the buckets, or into the dedicated table drawers, there seems to be a conspiracy. Little bits of Lego put themselves out there and try to escape , with the odd one getting lost in the jungle fibres that is our carpet, until you step on it and bruise your foot (somehow even the red bricks manage to hide themselves in blonde carpet....beware!!!!!!) or your van sucks them up and starts making that funny sound when it chokes on it.Yes, they get EVERYWHERE!

A third downside applies if you have dogs. Made of ABS plastic, they look and smell nothing like doggy biscuits, yet dogs seem to LOVE chomping on the larger bricks. This can be dangerous as they can crack open bones, so ABS plastic is no chore but is SHARP when broken. Indeed, my aunt's dog found this to his dismay one evening when he chomped a corner of one, broke off a piece and promptly cut himself. Silly doggy needed stitches in his mouth. Despite having seen many a child also try this Lego as a biscuit trick, I have not however seen one yet capable of biting so hard that the Lego brick breaks.These are very sturdy. I have seen the similar toy Megabloks so break though, so tend to stick with the original Lego brand for quality.

That aside, these are a fantastic toy. Few toys which are simple in design, and affordable, fire the imagination in such ways, and all (the basic sets anyway) battery free. Start with an age appropriate bucket of mixed pieces, and set your child's imagination free.

Summary: A good imagination building toy for children