For The Love Of Lego
Legos are to Simon like scrapbooking is to me. Life.
They are often his activity of choice. He checks out Lego.com for updates, watches Lego videos online, gets the free magazine in the mail, and always wants to visit the Lego aisle at Target.
He goes through phases of interest between the different themes but mainly it's been Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lego City, and now, of course, it's all Harry Potter (that's big on his Christmas list).
When we moved a few months back, packing up the legos and deciding how to organize them took some time. I decided to buy a bunch more plastic drawers in two sizes. With the help of a couple neighbor girls we broke down most of the ships (previously sitting on a large metal shelf in his room) and separated each set into it's own drawer. It was quite an adventure.
After we broke down the sets to fit in the drawers there were still lots of pieces not belonging to any particular set so for those we separated the remaining parts by color.
For his new room in this house we set up two Ikea tables along one wall to create a desk area (these were previously under his loft bed in the other house). At some point he might do his homework here but for now that happens at the kitchen table and this set-up is really mainly for play.
On top of those desks are XL lego baseplates. I'm thinking I might adhere those to the table but for now he can move them around if he wants.
His bedroom has a pretty big closet that already contained built-in shelves. Amazingly those shelves seem like they were built just for those plastic storage containers.
Another thing you might see in the photo that we use are cookie sheets. Cookie sheets have been great for keeping all the pieces together if he wants to move from the dining room to his bedroom.
He's often got a little pile or two or three with drawers pulled out and people being prepared for battle.
Simon's very much a direction follower and doesn't have much interest in making up new ships or places. He follows the written instructions precisely and wants each item to be built just like he sees on the box and in the directions. It's so cool to watch him put one of these sets together.
We keep the instructions for each set in a couple large binders (each set of directions is inside a page protector). This set up has worked pretty good. He goes back to the notebooks when a set breaks apart or he wants to rebuild something. This is also a reason that separating the extra parts by color has worked so great for him - it's easy for him to identify what he needs in the book and then go to the matching color drawer.
Still on my list to do is print out small images of each set to adhere to the front of the drawers to help identify the contents.
I think he's pretty happy in his new room.
Lego, we love you. Thanks for being a part of our lives.
And Simon, I hope Santa brings you that Hogwarts Castle set. It looks so cool!
I asked Simon if he wanted me to capture him explaining what he was playing last night and he got excited. Here's Simon, in his own words:
Simon Edwards: Lego Harry Potter Quidditch Explanation from Ali Edwards on Vimeo.
I didn't know there was a free lego magazine so I ordered one for my girls who are starting to get into legos. Thanks Ali! Love the video Simon.:)
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Simon is very talented. Following the directions so precisely! Love Legos and so glad he enjoys them so much.
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Our house looks like this, too! Can you believe the ever increasing popularity of Legos? We organize our manuals like you do, but we sort our Legos by color into large clear lidded boxes from The Container Store. We have 2 boxes that are special: 1 for "smalls", the tiniest of parts; 1 for people/figures and all of their accesories.
One of the funnest things we ever did was purchase 10 pounds of random Legos from Ebay (they went immediately into the sink to e washed). Sorting them was a blast - and we got lots of vintage figures otherwise unavailable.
Your son is so handsome and I love his new desk!
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I just accidentally deleted my long comment.. argh.
Basically your son's room would be my son's heaven. I love your idea for storing the manuals and that closet is excellent. He's asking for more Legos for Christmas so we need to get cracking with a new system. You've just inspired me. Thanks!
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Love the video Ali! It's so cool to see Simon passionate about his Legos!
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My girls never got into legos, although one is into scrapping :-). Simon is a sweetheart and so into his explanation...love it! Hope my little guy (turning 2 next month) finds a passion like Simon did. Getting him curious about the duplo blocks right now...let's see where that leads!
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My son is 13 and still LOVES legos. It feeds his creativity and love of building things. Love the video of Simon!
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My boys love legos as well. They are in to Star Wars and lego city. I see that Simon has the fire station which is at the top of my 4 yr old's christmas list. Did you know ToyRUS has a coupon for this Fri and Sat to BUY ONE LEGO, GET ONE HALF OFF. Here is the link http://view.ed4.net/v/JXMZNR/7L9VZ/1633P0G/OURX50/MAILACTION=1&FORMAT=H?csm=169322058&csc=1233795&csa=169305696&csu=1234671
Unfortunately not valid on star wars or harry potter legos!
Oh awesome - thanks for that...he has an interest in the other lego games too.
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Simon is so passionate. The video made my heart so happy. :) Thanks for sharing your storage system. I don't have kids, but I might some day and this will for sure come in handy!
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Thank you Simon for sharing with us your love of legos..... You are a special young man....
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Love how organized you are!!
I saw this and thought of you guys
http://heatherjslife.blogspot.com/2010/08/lego-storage-labels-free-download.html
Cool - thanks Sue!
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Ali,
Please tell Simon that I so loved his video about Legos that I am now going to buy my 8-year-old niece a big set of Legos for Christmas! (If he can give me any suggestions, that would be great!) ;) His passion for the worlds he creates is inspiring and it reminded me of why children are the greatest gift, they really help us find the joy in life that we tend to overlook or take for granted as adults.
xo
Jocelyn
Exactly right :).
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Thanks so much for sharing that video. Simon did a great job and is adorable! I have 3 grown sons, all of whom loved their legos. I think that they are the greatest toy ever invented! Enjoy that precious little guy-he's wonderful!
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Thanks for the great ideas, Ali. My 8 and 6 year-old boys are lego maniacs! I have to ask where you got that cool poster in Simon's room of all the star wars mini-figures - so very cool!
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My little 5-year old is just learning to appreciated Legos for something other than sticking up his nose. So, we went to visit my mom the other day and she breaks out my old delux Lego set from when I was around my son's age (which was oh so many moons ago) and I open it up and every piece is still there, all categorized by color and shape. Apparently, my OCD tendencies started at a very young age. Oh, and as a San Diegan, I should tell you that Christmastime at Legoland is a blast!
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Thanks for sharing, Ali! My little guy is 5 and has just started collecting the Legos. I admit I'm a little overwhelmed by the maintenance of his expanding inventory, so thanks for the great ideas for storage.
Great video of Simon. Please tell him his room is really cool.
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Simon is sooo adorable - love his exitment for legos ;o) I have 2 lego-boys at home as well and it is one of the greatest toys ever (I still have my legos from the 70s so they keep forever....)
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Thank you, Simon, now I finally understand Quidditch! Isn't it a great game? All the best from ~Julia
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My son loved legos, too. Now he's working on an engineering degree! My, how time flies. What a precious snapshot in the life of a really cool little boy. And I'm so glad to know that the snitch is worth 50 points! Thanks, Simon. <3
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Awesome setup, Simon. Loved your vid, too. My boys are all grown up and have moved away, but they used to love legos, too. When I told them I was getting rid of stuff in the basement, they said right away, "You saved all my Legos, didn't you?" Of course, I had.
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I like to use muffin pans as well for organizing/separating out the Legos while we are constructing/creating things!
We do too Suz - it's a great way to do it. Here's an older post that shows some images of that: http://aliedwards.com/2009/01/and-only-four-a-half-hours-later.html
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Hey Ali, thanks for sharing. My 6yo son loves Star Wars legos too. You mentioned you use cookie sheets for transport, so I wanted to share with you that we use a cheap set of muffin pans to seperate all the pieces out when getting ready to build. This helps tremendously when his little sister insists on trying to help! Have a great day!
We do that too Wendy - it's such a great way to separate the pieces out. I've noticed that many of the newer sets have numbered bags - when he first started none of the bags were numbered so we had to open them all (on some of those sets that's almost or over 1000 pieces).
Here's a post from 2009 where I talked about the muffin tins: http://aliedwards.com/2009/01/and-only-four-a-half-hours-later.html
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I love Simon's new room! What is that poster above his lego table, it looks like all lego people.
It is a Lego people poster. We got it a couple of years ago - it's all Star Wars mini-figures celebrating 10 years. They were limited edition - here's a post I found: http://www.brothers-brick.com/2009/05/02/celebrate-10-years-of-lego-star-wars-with-a-free-limited-edition-poster-from-the-lego-shop-news/
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What a dear little boy, you must be very proud.
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Absolutely precious video and great organization ideas! My adult son is hanging onto his passion for legos through his five year old son who is also a lego fan. Their dining room table is usually transformed into a legoland of one venue or another.
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