For The Love Of Lego
Tags: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.






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257 comments
I loved Simon's video! My boys (6, 10, and 13) all have Harry Potter and Star Wars legos on their Christmas lists. Legos have been a part of our daily lives since my oldest discovered them at age 4. His love for building with them has been passed on to his two brothers. I really like your organization system. Ours are all mixed up, and I would love to get the sets separated and sorted so my youngest can find the parts he wants to build a set. I do have instructions in binders, but we have 3 large ones filled! We did separate Bionicle parts into plastic cases that are supposed to be used for sorting hardware. It worked pretty well for a while!
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I have a 7 year old who wants Legos so he can watch his older brother put them together...precious brother love;-) My younger son really gets his older brother and this is a great connection for them and I know he can sense that. My oldest son, who is 11, takes Lego play very seriously and sets up elaborate "stories" on the 8 foot table in his room. Stars Wars is his passion as well. He is saving up for a Star Wars Turbo Tank...$113 worth. That is some serious saving for something that he really loves doing. Legos=boyhood.
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My son loved Legos! He would get a set for Christmas and would start in on it as soon as we were done opening gifts. Last year for Christmas we bought him the Frank Lloyd Wright set Falling Water and our then 23 year old son was in heaven the rest of the day putting it together.
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we're currently setting up our unfinished basement into a lego wonderland for my bigs (7 & 9) - i'm definitely going to borrow some of these ideas!! thanks for sharing them. =)
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That sounds awesome Lisa!
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He is *precious*. So nice to see this after years of watching him grow up via your work :)
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This is so cool Ali, love how you help him with his passion. Giving him tables and organizers and a binder makes it so much easier to have fun with these. Great job Simon, loved the video and hearing his voice. That's a great closet for a lego boy. Good luck on your wish list Simon.
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My son has been Lego crazed since about 3 (he's 5 1/2 now). With him, it's all about his own creations. He could care less about building what the kit intended - or if the parts are all jumbled. When he picks something out - it's for the individual pieces ... not the ship itself.
We "organize" his in large plastic drawers (like one of those rolling cabinets) - but I've been told 'by color' is the way to go (you know, by older, wiser Lego maniacs LOL!). I tried organizing by shape - he's still not ready for that.
Loving the cookie sheet idea.
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oh my Lord, he is so stinkin' cute.
LOVE it.
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Simon and my son are so similar with their love of Legos. Of course you have his collection sorted and stored well. My son's room is littered with Lego creations. The soldiers from the Star wars sets he calls Roger Rogers "because that's what they say".
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by gluestickgirl and hchybinski, Josephina Mydreama. Josephina Mydreama said: For The Love Of Lego: Legos are to Simon like scrapbooking is to me. Life. They are often his… http://goo.gl/fb/ALIuZ [...]
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Legos are always on my gift-giving list for my two boys, 14 and 18 - yes, 18! He never gets tired of building new sets - he's also very big into taking apart and fixing things on his truck and motorcycle - maybe it all started with just a little Lego set!
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So many great things in the post - love all the lego links and tips. We also use cookie sheets and muffin tins for organizing projects on the go - think the muffin tin idea came from one of your older posts :) The binder with page protectors and manuals is so clever - I'll have to start one of those.
And... the video of Simon is wonderful - he must have felt like a champ doing that - so cool - he's awesome!!
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I love hearing about Simon and his Lego passion. We tried various systems of organizing, but ultimately ended up by color in bins like you are using. My kids mostly only liked to build the intended model the first time and then they created their own versions of it. They (15 and 11) packed away the most amazing Lego city last year. It was a very sad day for me. I think they were ready to have that era end. For years, they would spend hours on that city and had a whole family tree of characters that lived in the city. (I mean literally a family tree hung on a wall!) I did have, what I was proud of, a brilliant thought last year and asked them to build me a Christmas Village before the Legos retired. It was beautiful and is a wonderful keepsake for them as well.
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Oh Ali - did you have a little tear in your eye while you were filming this? Simon is just precious - his mother's son for sure w/ his tutorials!!! =) My almost-13 daughter was watching with me, and she said, "He really knows what he's talking about - that's Quidditch exactly!" My son was(is?) a huge Lego fan as well. He's 16, but still enjoys the Star Wars kits & the challenge of putting them together. {Yeah, don't tell him I just told you that...} =)
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I feel like I live with tears in my eyes (most often in a very good way) with Simon. There's just something about him...
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Love. I'm so glad Simon has a great place to indulge his creativity - and those Harry Potter sets are super cool!
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Ali-
I'm not sure if you or Simon would be interested, but I'm the head of a "LEGO" team at the school I teach at and this post made me think of it. They are world-wide, so if you research your area you might find a school,4-H club, etc. that participates. It's called First Lego League, and students build with Legos and then program a robot to complete a task. That's just a basic summary, but if you would like more info. check out their website at
http://www.firstlegoleague.org/
Thanks!
Melia
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How cool Melia - I've not heard of that before.
Our First Lego League goes to competitions. If you are not interested in all of that, you could just purchase the robot kit. I recommend the educator's model. (I am not try to sell anything, but if he is this interested in legos, I bet he would LOVE seeing them move!)
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Dear God, I love that kid. Seriously, Ali, if he ever goes missing, before you call the cops, check my house first.
He is absolutely a joy.
K.
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Lego mania at our house too. My son, Ian (6 1/2) is totally into Lego. Mostly Star Wars but Harry Potter is starting to make his presence felt!
Our BEST organizing tool is a Fishermans Tackle Box. Ian is more into the people than the buidlings. The tackle box keeps all the Clones, Jedi, driods and thier pieces/parts in one place. AND it's portable. I too am in favor of cookie sheets and document protector for keeping things organized. I may try the little plastic boxes like Simon has...but that $12 tackle box has been worth its weight in GOLD! (Props to DH who thought of it!)
Love the video of simon. Great grasp on the ins and outs of Quidditch...cute!
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I'm a little jealous! I've always LOVED Legos but my boys coudln't care less! I bought them some so we could build cars and race them and they were interested for about a minute. Right now it's all about Toy Story around here! Perhaps, Toy Story Legos? Or maybe I should get them for me!
That little guy is adorable, Ali! Not that you need anyone to tell you that. =)
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Have you seen that new Lego Creationary game? I'm getting it for my son for Christmas so the whole family can play. The reviews are all great. Maybe they will share your enthusiasm after playing the game with you.
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My son is 20 and still pulls out the legos when he comes home on break. I scrapbooked several pages BEFORE they had come out with actual LEGO sb paper. (I made hundreds of legos - rectangular bright colored pieces and drew circles and wrote tiny tiny LEGO in each and every one of them! - some of my favorite early pages!)...
One thing you must look into .. is LEGOLAND ... we went three or four times when our son was young .. and it was amazing!
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