Lego advice please

[BeaWheesht]

Ds is almost 7 and has never been too fussed with Lego but has recently started to play with all the Lego people have bought him over the years and has asked for 'a big set' for Christmas.

I am keen to encourage it because he has issues with fine motor skills so anything that helps with those is a good thing, however, I don't want to spend a fortune in case he loses interest.

So can anyone reccommend a Lego set that looks impressive (ie big box!!) but that doesn't cost the earth ? It's a long shot I know.

Some great ideas thank you

I bought 4kg of Lego for £40 all in on eBay. Having to machine wash it(!) as it is a bit grubby but it is tonnes and we are chucking our new stuff in too so she can build e.g. the friends sets but then expand their shop or house forever onwards.
Trying to also introduce the rule that we always put away Lego into the box as well!

I would go for the Large Brick Box set, which has a good mix of bricks. Makes a good tarter kits, and is around £25.

You can get some good bargains on ebay if you aren't fussy about specific "sets" - I don't think children get nearly as much play-value from a Harry Potter/Star Wars set which is designed to be made into one specific set following instructions as they do from just having a big box of it and the ability to make whatever they like. You can get random boxes of mixed lego quite cheaply and make all sorts of stuff with it.

toys rus had 2000 lego bit for £20 last year... hopfully they will bring it back

also if you get set i recomend a board and buying some roof tiles :)

Where's a good place to get large base plates?

We're moving my 3 sons into a bigger bedroom this year and I want to stick some on the wall (Pinterest idea) so they can build lego straight onto it.

No idea where's the best place to start looking.

We got some base plates on eBay. They are expensive new, relative to other Lego, and weren't actually particularly cheap on eBay. But they are so worth it as DS does some brilliant layouts with them. We have a mixture of road, green and blue and he can make roads, airports, seaside, forest etc, out of them. Definitely worth it despite the expense.

large brick box

Argos do a large pink box too

baseplates

argos has a baseplate too

My dd loves the creator sets, I have got her another set (one of the house sets) for Christmas. I wouldn't go too big if he is not used to building lego sets as they can be quite tricky (a couple years ago I spent all Christmas night building ninjago for dd1 as she could not do it).

Definately go for a big bundle on Ebay with lots of wheels and preferably in a nice lego storage box. much better value and you won't have to worry about keeping sets together. Our bundle gets played with much more than the sets.

lugnet (do a google) have pretty much every set of plans ever printed.....

I had great fun recently rebuilding the Massey Ferguson tractor that I got in about 1980......

Thanks ilove

I love Apple Tree Cottage and would have bought it for DS1 this year for me to play with but he's now very fixated on Star Wars lego. Am getting lots of Star Wars odds and sods off ebay, though.

If you buy a used joblot off ebay and decide to wash it, please don't put it in the dishwasher. It can warp and deform. Washing machine in a net bag probably best if you can stand the noise. A tiny bit escaping will bugger your machine up, though!

For bargains, check Sainsbury regularly, as I often get half priced sets there. Recently bought the boardgame Lego Battle of Hoth halfprice.

I got apple tree cottage for MY birthday...

Amazon have the creator tree house for £15 at the moment ( was £25 ), looks like a good set, not huge but reasonable size and it makes 3 different houses.

I usually find play.com good for Lego offers, I check it regularly (dss loves star wars Lego), and is usually free delivery too so although things appear cheaper on other sites sometimes, by the time you add on the postage, it will be more.

Evil evil evil thread. Made me finally succumb and buy the winter village cottage, which I had been eyeing up since it first was released (because I found it tonight for a really good price from German amazon).