Anonymous wrote:Yeah I also think legos are worth the money- it’s a phase for sure, I think the peak was K-2 for my son. Now he still plays with legos but isn’t into sets anymore. Still getting a lot of mileage out of them, we have a 9 and 5 YO and started on legos when the oldest was 4.

Not necessarily. My preteen is still going strong. It’s a certain kind of kid who will still like them years from now, though. He’s sporty but also likes Lego building - a lot.

Yeah I also think legos are worth the money- it’s a phase for sure, I think the peak was K-2 for my son. Now he still plays with legos but isn’t into sets anymore. Still getting a lot of mileage out of them, we have a 9 and 5 YO and started on legos when the oldest was 4.

I invested too much in Legos and no regrets - whatever keeps him away from gadgets!

I look at Legos as an experience. Would you spend $30+ for your child to go to a fun museum, bounce house, etc.? We have invested a lot in Legos ourselves. But our child LOVES building them, and he spends hours working on them. And then rebuilding them and creating new things.

To me, it's been worth every penny because he is building, creating, working on his own, working with us, thinking, and spending time on a project that does not involve TV or video games.

Be careful or before you know it...you'll be drowning in lego pieces. Seriously though....my son LOVES LEGOs. He'll build a kit once or twice, then destroy it and start building his own creations. But he'll never build that original set again....so now I see each new set as just more and more individual pieces mounting up and not getting used....

And agree with others on the advent calendar. RESIST! Don't do it. Yes, he'll love it that year but they're just more individual pieces!

Anonymous wrote:I want the LEGO VW van for myself but it’s like $120!!

Me too!!!!!

Lego hack: if you have a lot of Legos, you don't need to buy the sets. You can print out the directions from the Lego website for free. If you have set number, you can print it out for a specific set, or you can browse by theme.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions

I really like putting these dang kits together; it’s almost meditative.

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure how much it costs but my husband bought our new-5-year-old a set of something like 1500 Lego pieces at Costco a month or two ago, so you might check there. I will keep spending money on Legos because my son spends hours and hours creating stuff and his imagination runs wild. I love it. Such a great way to create. He enjoys building the specific sets a few times but I actually think just buying lots of pieces is great for us because he loves making his own creations.

And my 3-year-old daughter is starting to build stuff with his Duplos.

Ok, so I am confused. With 1500 pieces plus more from sets, how does buying more sets use his imagination or enhance creativity? Wouldn't imagination/creativty be putting things together out of the supply he has on hand? Are the specialty pieces in the sets that meaningful? Or. . . . is it about putting together a set according to the directions?

We had a lot of lego pieces, many from thrift stores, I bought a few sets over the years, and I think I gave them to someone when DS grew up.

I did keep the supply of wooden building blocks, bought multiple sets new, used. They got used way more than the legos actually.

I am not sure how much it costs but my husband bought our new-5-year-old a set of something like 1500 Lego pieces at Costco a month or two ago, so you might check there. I will keep spending money on Legos because my son spends hours and hours creating stuff and his imagination runs wild. I love it. Such a great way to create. He enjoys building the specific sets a few times but I actually think just buying lots of pieces is great for us because he loves making his own creations.

And my 3-year-old daughter is starting to build stuff with his Duplos.

Anonymous wrote:I have already spend more than $200 on lego for my 3 year old over the last few months. I have purchased some sets of lego classic & city ones. He loves to build things with small pieces, and we read instruction & build them together. DH told me that he sold all his legos (of course not the classic, city ones) for almost a thousand right before he went off college. I wish he had kept all those legos for our sons to play since some of them he sold were the rare & out of prints ones.

Now the lego advent calendar is coming out, and I am tempted to buy as well. Lego seems like a money burning toy. How much is reasonable to spend for lego in a year for a young kid?

I feel you OP. I spend about that amount on Legos for DS too. He is 5, so i don't even want to add up how much i have spent but he really loves them and it's the one thing that will keep him busy for hours. The problem is he likes the challenge of building the piece and doesn't really play with it much and then wants another one to build. It has gotten better now that he is older and more creative. He now reuses old lego sets and creations that are partially broken to create things that he thinks of himself.

To answer your question - i say spend as much as you can afford if it makes your kid happy. For me the joy on my son's face when he proudly shows off a new creation - especially the ones he invents by himself is priceless.

FWIW, we've reused a LEGO Advent calendar for a few years now. The kids still love taking turns opening a door and building each of the individual things. We also have a ridiculous amount of LEGO, but DD likes to take it apart and build all sorts of things with it and there's a lot of imaginative play going on so I don't mind the sheer volume of LEGO that we've accumulated. I definitely prefer it to LOL dolls or any of the other stuff that she'd request instead.

I have a 4yo and 7yo - we are in the thick of it for Legos. My kids like the sets, though they do get broken up and mixed up after a while. The thing is though that the sets have a lot of the more interesting pieces than the classic sets of bricks and those are the ones my kids are always looking for. The "computers" or the various types of windshields or windows/doors, etc. I don't really buy them sets outside of their birthdays/Christmas, but they spend hours tinkering with them.

I've bought two of the lego advent calendars already - I agree they aren't really worth it in terms of value/brick, but the kids love them, so we'll do it.

My kids are 8 and 6.5 and we've never bought them any Legos.

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, LEGO just announced a Harry Potter advent calendar (first one ever). I think sometimes I want the LEGO more than my kids do.

I'm buying it for myself! Legos have been a great bonding experience for our family.