4.7 year old ds... want to get him a creativeish present... lego? meccano? playmobile??? where to start

[lunavix]

Not sure about playmobil, I never liked it as a child (was never a 4.7yo boy however) and we have a lot of happyland so I'm wary of starting a similar collection.

A friend said one of these www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3875964/Trail/searchtext%3ELEGO.htm but I was wondering about some kind of model type kit like something star warsish? dunno lol

He loved watching another boy play meccano and I think they do some startery sets of that for 4 years old...

Storage is a big issue. Don't want bits muddled!

What do I go for?

ds is 3.9 at the moment and he loves his duplo but we have decided to give him the lego fire station (which he is probably a year too young for) as my mother is getting him a blue box lego starter kit like yours. I think he will love it!

We have had big lego (smaller than duplo but bigger than diddy lego) and he's not really interested. And he will sit there attempting to make things with diddy lego so I figured he's more than ready for it. We have a huge box from ex-h's childhood but he gets stressed when bits are missing which is why I'm selling jumbled box and starting again!

I think it sounds like a good idea ... my mum has bought ds the £29.99 starter box. It looked huge in the photo but it is tiny in real life! Ds uses his cousin's duplo (its the smaller version)and I think he is ready for real lego. We are planning on building the fire station for him and then letting him play with it rather than build it ... it seemed the cheapest and easiest way of getting him the fire engine he wanted!

lol

I forgot, we actually bought him the pirates megabloks pirate ship for christmas last year. (called megabloks but is actually tiny lego..) he can't build it but loves it.

hmm

This stuff www.mailorderexpress.com/Mobilo_54_Piece_Starter_Set_In_Sort_Box.asp?aid=froogle08

It's called mobilo. My ds has a big box and gets hours of entertainment out of it. He's 5.5y

Yeah, I'd second mobilo.

Is that like this?

www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/0815381/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CToys+and+games%7C10198115/ c2/2%7Ccat10198115%7CConstruction%7C10198346.htm that's what I was nosing at earlier

How about Knex? My ds's have the Kids Knex which they love and I'm getting some of the smaller sized one for older children for them for Christmas.

If you are going for Lego I would definitely get the sort of set you linked to - the model-type kits tend to be quite hard to put together correctly without adult input and you can only make the one model - and then they lose some of the pieces so they can\t even make that....