Question for you "Lego Experts"

[#1hoosierfan]

I saw on another thread that the Lego City Mining set is on sale for a good deal. My ds will be 6 in February. A lot of the Lego sets are for ages 6-12. Is he too young to be able to do these sets? Dh and I would love to help him, but I want him to be able to do a lot of it too.

Right now he loves to play with the medium size legos. He makes his on creations with them.... airplanes, ships, forts etc.... nothing from a kit.

Thanks!

 

[Plumeria9]

You can always just buy it and save it for a few years. Buy him a mixed set tub of the regular sized LEGO and see how he does w/ it first. Happy building!

 

[Neesy228]

My older DS is/was (it's starting to wane, which makes me so sad!) an avid Lego fan. Based on his experience, as well as that of my younger DS, I would say that 5/6 is probably too young for the set. You would have to help him through the whole thing - unless he's really great with following the lego directions and VERY patient.

I would start with a few of the smaller sets and see how he does. They're usually priced anywhere between $5-20. By next Christmas, he should be ready for the medium/larger sized sets!

 

[CopperWife]

My DD turned just turned 6 at the beginning of the month. She was doing the smaller Lego Friends sets without any help from us before her birthday and begged us for Olivia's House (the BIG lego house) for her birthday present. We ended up getting it for her and she did it all by herself. It took her about 5 hours, but she did it! The instructions are really easy to follow and the kits are sorted into bags to make assembly easier. Open bag 1, assemble. Open bag 2, assmeble, etc. I would go ahead and get it!

 

[jrw118]

My 7 yr old got this is August. He has done plenty of the larger sets alone including the millennium falcon and other large Star Wars sets. Hejaz done the police station and. fire station as well. I am convinced that if it isn't $100+ my DS doesn't want it lol

 

[clm10308]

I saw on another thread that the Lego City Mining set is on sale for a good deal. My ds will be 6 in February. A lot of the Lego sets are for ages 6-12. Is he too young to be able to do these sets? Dh and I would love to help him, but I want him to be able to do a lot of it too.

Right now he loves to play with the medium size legos. He makes his on creations with them.... airplanes, ships, forts etc.... nothing from a kit.

Thanks!

The only "problem" I can think of with a kit for a younger child is that he will not be able to put it together without help or perhaps even with help. My DS has ADHD, but he could not put even a smaller kit together completely on his own until he was 8 or 9.
Also, even with the bigger kits that someone would put together for him, he preferred building his On my way! Creations and would take everything apart and mix all the pieces up so that he could do what he wanted. I don't know how many Star Wars and Indiana Jones sets that we hav bought over the years that are gone now.

I agree with the PP that suggested that you get him just a box of Lego pieces and let him play or get some smaller kits that could be put back together easily.
Save the bigger sets for when he is a little older.

 

[JessB320]

I'm going to go against the majority here And say get it. My DS is 5, last year he was 4 at Christmas and got a huge lot of Legos from Santa. He built all kinds of things following the instructions all on his own. We download some more instructions for more complicated things off the Internet for him as well. If your DS can build on his own with the Legos he already has he may be ready for the next level of difficulty. Worst case he needs help making the kit but he would still be able to make he own creations with them when you can't be around to help.

 

[jessica52877]

If he is building others then I don't think it would be an issue at all. DS was much younger then 6 when he put his first large $100+ lego kit together. I think it all depends on their personality. Mine will sit for hours and put legos together, is very patient and enjoys reading/following directions. The sets are broken up and only a few pieces are added in each step and it shows you what you need so for beginners they can pull all the pieces for each step and then build.

 

[letsgoreds]

Depends on the kid. My DS7 could have put this together by himself when he was 4. He is a very focused, patient kid who loves Legos. Worst case, you build it together.

Most of these larger sets have multiple bags, separated by item, so you aren't sorting through a million bag to build one of the vehicles, etc. Go for it, it is a great set...I picked one up for my 4yo nephew for Christmas. He has been working on the smaller sets for about a year now.

For the younger guys, the fact that after it is built, it is interactive (roll play, etc.) is a HUGE plus. I know that my 2.5yo will love playing with the trucks/crane/etc. after the 7yo builds it. Thank goodness the little guy doesn't put things in his mouth like his older brother did!

 

[letsgoreds]

I also just looked at the front of the box, which states "Modular build, easy start"...speaking to the split up bags/instructions...modular nature of the set.

 

[BlueBeagle]

Depends on the kid. My middle son was building big sets when he was 4 but my youngest still doesn't like to do them. He looses interest about halfway through but he loves to play with them when they are done. I agree with previous poster to try the modular build. My youngest got the airplane last year and loved it (and finished it all by himself ). Also, you might want to look into the Lego Advent calendars. They are very cool and you get a small thing to build each day. My boys love this!

 

[pigletto]

I agree that it depends on the child. At 5 and 6 ds wanted Lego sets but didn't have the patience to sit for hours and do them on his own. At 7 and 8 that has changed completely and he is able to complete them himself and occupy himself for hours!
We'll still help him to spend time together doing a project but he is now able to read all of the instructions and do a large project from start to finish without getting bored.

 

[ktlm]

If he loves to play with Legos and makes his own stuff out of them, it will be fine. I say get it. DD is 6. The first kit she got, we had to help her quite a bit because she had never seen those type of instructions before and wasn't quite sure how to do it. It was actually fun for all of us. The instructions are in pictures and pretty easy to follow once you get used to them. Once we showed her on the first kit, she got the hang of it. She absolutely loves the Lego Friend's sets. Plus, after she makes the item once the way the kit shows, she often takes it apart and "redesigns" it her own way. She also mixes pieces from the different kits to design different things.

Now, my cousin's son, he was doing all the big sets on his own at age 4 because he is crazy about legos. He didn't even need help at that age.