To be totally overwhelmed by Lego?

[sonshineandshowers]

DS5 got given some lovely Lego sets for his birthday. Today we started putting together a Campervan, it took about an hour but it was fun and he was very good at it, even his little brother 3 wasn't too unhelpful. I'd explained they needed to be careful with it whilst playing with it, but naturally within 10 mins pieces started falling off and I was getting requests to fix it. Only it's quite tricky to fix without dismantling the whole thing and starting over, especially given by this point pieces are behind sofa cushions, stuffed in the back of a lorry by DS3 etc.

I tried for a while but in the end I gave up as we are going on holiday tomorrow and I should really be washing, packing etc not playing with Lego! I put it back in the box, DS5 was a bit upset and I feel bad that after all that effort there's nothing to show for it.

But it's annoying, are we meant to try and keep all the sets together? If so, how are people doing that? Or do we just put all the tiny pieces from a multitude of sets in a massive box, make it a free for all and never build them again?

Are they supposed to just be kept as display pieces once built? My kids arent particularly rough in their play and were mainly just driving it around, putting the figures in and out, so seems wierd if you're just meant to stick it on a shelf out of reach.

Do I need to buy a box, a shelf, loads of little storage bags?!

How are we doing this? Appreciate I may be overthinking.

This is why my daughter doesn't like Lego kits....are prefers just building with Lego and then plays with Playmobil re small world. Yanbu.

We have about 18 boxes of varying colours with all our pieces sorted by colour / type. (Railway, see though, technic, minifigs etc have their own boxes) but we have masses of Lego and we all get more every year.

some sets stay made up. Some get broken to pieces and then we use the bits for other builds. All our build instructions are catalogued by theme in case we want to build a set again.

if you don’t get any enjoyment fr that sort of thing that probably sounds bonkers!

Yeah, Duplo for 3 year olds. And for older. I can remember making with DH and 9 or 10 year old a DNA type double helix with duplo.

Playmobil, if you have several sets, also works well as a construction kit, with free form castles, harbours with lighthouses, etc

Defo start out with random bits - it's best that way IMO. You can still buy Creative/Classic sets, which are boxes of bricks with a few special bits like eyes/wheels/flowers etc. The box doubles up as a storage vessel, but won't last long once you start adding new sets. Even a 3yo will enjoy sticking bricks randomly together, building basic shapes, a house etc.

If you haven't done this I would still just chuck it all in a box all mixed up. It would be too difficult to keep sets separate and I think that mixing it encourages them to be creative, which is the whole point of lego. It's quite soothing to dig through for the right part, and if you only have a few sets then it won't take too long. Shallow, wide boxes are good. Ikea have a good box called Pansartax which is wide and they stack. Two on top of each other fit perfectly in a Kallax shelf. That's what we have for lego right now. (I think we previously had the cheaper SAMLA but ran out of space).

Sorting by colour is a waste of time, because you can always substitute a piece of the same shape but a different colour, and because it gets mixed up so easily and the kids don't stick to it. It looks pretty for "Sort Your Life Out" type programmes, or maybe adult collectors who are meticulous, but it doesn't make sense for your average 5yo (IMO).

The only sorting system for Lego I've ever seen which made sense is the one they had on Dragon's Den years ago which was four stackable trays each with a different sized mesh as a base. Biggest holes at the top, smallest at the bottom. Put all lego in the top and sift it like someone panning for gold. All the tiny bits in theory trickle through to the bottom leaving the bigger parts in the upper layers. Brilliant! I wanted to recreate it but it was expensive to buy all the stuff I needed, so I never got around to it. (I bet you could 3D print one these days.) In the end, it doesn't matter, because physics will do the same thing in the box, so you can always find the tiny pieces lurking at the bottom and the bigger pieces rise to the top.

The sets once made up are not usually robust enough to actually stand up to being played with, especially the way that a 5yo would play with vehicles usually. The campervan one can cope with being opened and closed and the people put in and out carefully, that's about it really. They are more designed for either the fun of building it, to be displayed, or to set up little scenes.

We have a ring binder, a big fat one with 4 rings, with poly pockets divided into half and quarter A4 (supposed to be for photos, I think?) and I keep the instructions in there. They were supposed to be sorted by type but it doesn't stay in order so we just flip through and look for what we want to build. Those old CD wallet things would work too, if you have one of those lying around and no idea what to do with it.

They tend to have suggested ages on the front which correlates to the complexity of the build, so if you're beginners then I'd aim for a year or so younger. Lego Juniors are extremely simple. Lego City tend to be good for 5yo and lots of themes which will appeal to them. Lego Creator sets are great, because you get 3 models to build out of the same set of bricks. These are often quite easy to build too. Be careful with some of the City ones as they can be more complicated, we have the car wash and a recycling truck and those have some fiddly bits.

If your pieces are all mixed up, then what I tended to do when helping DC around this age was look to the next page of instructions and I'd try and find the right pieces, then they would put them together with help if needed. Once you are a bit more experienced with it, show them the part of the page where it tells you which bits to look for, then look through the box together (or tip it out and make a pile each).

We normally break up the models at the end of the day but if something is half-built or DC want to keep it to look at then we will keep a couple up on display at a time. As you have a little one as well I would recommend a safe/high place for these.

You normally get spares of each of the tiniest, most losable pieces but still do try to round them up at the end of the day as they are very hooverable.

Sorry that was a bit of a stream of consciousness

Omg I agree with you OP! It just stresses me out 😂

Lego was fun when I had my eldest 2 dd and generally I just bought a big box of lego and they made their own models. Dd2 in particular was a real lego enthusiast (she is 31 now). Later on when Harry Potter became popular they got all the sets and kept them made up - until ds went on a rampage (now 21). Dd2 won a lego prize at university and got all kinds of lego goodies and a few hundred pounds. She had a summer job at the end of year 2 where she just made lego models for a company (she was designing different sort of jibs for a large national company).
Ds is autistic and even though he is doing a masters at university he still gets upset if I try and take apart/ put away his models, either free form or from a kit. He has even cried so they are still there requiring dusting etc. Much better for them to build once and take apart.

My son is a nightmare for this. Literally the first thing he does is take the hair off the men and insists they’re all bald. he swaps the wheels with this set with a different set and swaps this or that. It put me so on edge trying to keep all the bits together and accounted for. Now I just let him free reign… try to keep types of lego together and have a spares boxes eg for lego city and lego friends so when we do take it all apart to rebuild from scratch (fairly regularly for some sets eg the 3 in 1 sets) most of the pieces can be found.

so I advise just letting them decide what sort of play is valid, explain to them the pros and cons eg can make rebuilding to plan harder in the future, but help them if they need it finding pieces or rebuilding.

also advise if playing with other people’s Lego you need to follow their rules as my nephew is still cross with my son for mixing sets he didn’t want mixed.

lego is awesome and very versatile and a great toy. We are Lego addicts in our house!

Blimey, that's LTB territory. Even if you were four at the time.

My dad glued an Imperial Star Destroyer together after getting fed up with it being so fragile. As an adult I managed to prise most of the plates apart without serious damage, the parts (sun-damaged as they are) were included in my display at a local lego convention, a set-up completely unrelated to Star Wars, such is the versatility of Lego.

Back in the day, Lego came as comparatively large sets capable of making a couple of dozen different models, with parts left over, for which there was an instruction diagram, or to be free play..to make whatever the imagination wanted. Parts were not so tiny back then. My brother and I made railway stations, buildings, houses, to decorate round the train set track and scalextric , from one box of Lego, or pistols to play at gangsters or cowboys. Not pc these days. Or vehicles or animals. Then Lego decided just enough parts to make one model would make them more money. Disaster IMO but if you buy enough models , you will have enough for imaginative play. My stepson makes models and keeps them on a shelf in his room. My children made the models then broke them up and the bits are all in a bag to be made into shelters for their farm animals, racing cars..etc. I find the tiny pieces annoying, fiddly and less fun than our restricted sizes of pieces even if the models were less accurately shaped.
. So do what you want. It’s supposed to be fun.

We have oodles of lego too. A lego sorter was really useful. It's like a multilayered sieve. So when you try and remake sets you can hunt through drawers of small, medium and large bits. You can buy random lego by the kilo on ebay. They are a bit young but as they get older my kids loved making stuff with moving parts

www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-Power-Functions-Idea-Book/dp/1593276885/ref=sr_1_20?adgrpid=1174279317402050&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xKnEsA11ZAVZJq10x3-KBiTvGqV0kH-7ggp8kVFz7x-X6zCUN32wuLxIZea4MyvZFZ9iWTzq8Gnt8CWg8F3Unjm8exHb078ZqMDMuQhdOMQ94CxYyWtsyCwhkr6J7Rbg4AIsdeCox3iRs0E5MiLvvnarmypNY7RAEHIlCfslx8TJVOgW5q_tSCHkrCW_fvY1_SJuxCfzdJYrguREDkQvZYXqPu6V05NxV_0T_vCqOPQ.Klgn1WmaXdCXqcrGkRTvJRWA8z9UQhGlIb4bk_UUj18&dib_tag=se&hvadid=73392659389963&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=41471&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-73392596685100%3Aloc-188&hydadcr=24401_2219219&keywords=lego+ideas+book&msclkid=bf29e98a64511a132f878f3a65616e25&qid=1722810680&sr=8-20

Sorting by colour hasn't stifled creativity at all in our house but I get where your coming from. My kids at the moment love building landscapes for their buildings, boats etc thatvrhey build so they like to build grassy areas/seas/sandy beaches etc so for us it just makes it easier. I also couldn't be bothered to sort piece by piece but if in the instruction booklets of the set pieces they want to build again its easier to find if they know what colour the piece was in the set then they are just trawling through a shallow tray of a few pieces rather than a bigger box.

I also get all of our lego second hand from gumtree. Got 2 massive boxes of free play lego for 50quid. And there's always nice sets on there aswell much cheaper.

I feel your pain. My DS was (still is) into Lego and had some large Star Wars sets. But bits would drop off and get lost. I did initially get very stressed about this, and tried to keep all the bits for each kit separately. But eventually I gave in and it all just went into one box.

DS is 21 and still plays with his Lego, but it is in about 5 boxes now. See through plastic ones with lids. Roughly organised into shapes.

Those kits are fine, but he just preferred to build his own things and was just as happy to receive a tub of mixed bricks.

The sets are sold as sets to make people purchase more.

It is better in terms of play and creativity to do what your kids do which is mix everything and build whatever they want.

We have a colour system. Works well and my ds builds tons of 'machines' but I also sit with my phone that has all the instructions for the sets sometimes and help him rebuild them .

My eldest son was a massive Lego fan, he had all the big Lego City sets that came out from when he was 4 to 8 years old. I kept them in the original boxes and he loved to rebuild them, then when he was 8 his dad decided that it's much more fun to use your imagination and make your own stuff. We came home to find he had tipped all the Lego from all of my sons sets into two massive, deep, lidded plastic storage boxes and thrown the original packaging. My son was gutted, he had so many sets that it was impossible to ever find the bits and get them back together. He's never been imaginative or creative, so building his own things held no appeal to him and he he refused to ever play Lego again.

So I would say all of these ideas of getting rid of the sets and using your imagination are great if your child likes that, but check with them first! I still feel sad about the sheer waste of all those bricks sitting upstairs, untouched for a decade now.

My 4.5yo likes to build with Duplo for imaginative creations and has built Lego sets (mainly Disney princess/ Spidey based) with me for making up stories around the characters. We've bought some bigger ones that are 6/7+ and she helps me to find the right pieces - it's a nice activity to do together. We keep them in a few big clear boxes so they can be kept pretty much together and don't take too much work to rebuild. She isn't the type to trash stuff so it works well at the moment. I'm going to get her some of the big boxes of Lego pieces for her birthday so she can move on from the Duplo for random building when she's ready.

I don't think the sets with instructions are very good for this age group. If they can't put it together themselves and its not robust enough to play with then what's the point? Adult builds it and it sits on a shelf?

Lego in this house has been used more for counting/maths games than anything else. For building, DS8 loves to put Ikea items together following instructions and using the tools and we get something usable for the family at the end of it. Cheaper also.

My partner and son collect Lego and once they're put together they aren't touched again. Our spare room is just full of Lego sets

My parents were also batshit too. No glue, but they’d only buy technic Lego for my older brothers because boys. I used to ask for it every Christmas but all I got was a deformed my little pony, a jigsaw puzzle of the counties of England and a filing cabinet. This was mainly because my mother was a teacher and wanted to use my presents as resources for “her children” who were her school pupils.

She used to say we had plenty of LEGO already, but it was just random normal LEGO in a big box with no instructions.

I’m the only one of their miserable children who has achieved anything, and became an engineer in spite of them.

My wonderful partner bought me my own technic lego set for Christmas 🥰

I don’t recommend having autistic parents.

I hate dealing with stuff that is sorted by colour. How do you see a yellow part in a bag of other yellow parts? I recently bought a secondhand Rivendell (substantially cheaper without the minifigures) which has six thousand pieces. The seller had sorted by colour and it was an absolute nightmare.

My stock of spare parts is in these trays (not exact model, I have the ones The Range used to stock):
https://www.screwfix.com/p/magnusson-compartment-organiser-case-12-4-x-9-3-4-/449jc

I've got two dozen trays (yes, I may have a problem) sorted out by part. One tray for 1-by-x bricks (sorted into compartments for 1-by-1, 1-by-2, 1-by-3 etc.), another tray for 2-by-x bricks, one for round bricks and plates, one for tiles, one for vegetation...

It makes it so much easier to find that one part you need.

My DC are different when it comes to Lego. DD10 builds the set and then leaves it completed forever (even those 3-in-1 sets, she picks her favourite and that's it!). She doesn't see the point of building it again and likes it to be on display. We have every single model she's built over the last five or so years still constructed in her room. There's quite a lot of it...

But DS6 likes to build, take apart and store, then build again. He's been doing it since he was 4, and just loves it so much - he's got more Lego than DD and that's saying something. And he likes the pieces to stay together in individual boxes, he'd be aghast if we mixed it all together! Far too frustrating when he just wants to put his ambulance together again or whatever.

We also have a Kallax box filled with bricks, all sorted by size/shape in IKEA bags, with a couple of bags of "misc" pieces (helmets, flowers, etc). They play with that a lot and obviously it all gets mixed up, but when they're done we make sure gets put back properly.

We have piles of Lego in Really Useful boxes with the plastic hobby dividers. Roughly sorted by type (so there are three boxes of Police Lego and two of Ninjago etc). Poor DH does twitch horribly as creative play muddles it all up. I’m more relaxed. The boxes stack nicely in our Kallax.

You can download the instructions and it's quite fun to look through for the right parts. Your son might find it easier to do now he's older. Then if he doesn't want to keep the sets they can be sold on eBay once you've separated them. If you can't remember what sets you have, I've found it helpful to locate any piece that looks unusual (e.g. a sausage, a rubber duck, a map) and Google reverse image search it and it will come up with a page where someone has catalogued every set that piece has been in. You'll likely then recognise which one it was that you had.

Otherwise you can sell Lego second hand by weight. If you let the buyer know that it has Lego city sets and what era, they'll probably be able to find them if they want to.