Family Games: Lego

Kids’ favourite Lego is often best bought by the kilo or pound on e-Bay. The essentials are a large flat base and plenty of basic bricks. Even if you’re buying everything new it makes sense to purchase bulk packs in standard sizes, because much of the fun comes from using your own imagination to design castles, starships, motorboats and more.

LEGO Basic Bricks #6177

Playing Lego using your own designs is also an ideal way for parents to share an open-ended activity with their kids. It’s not too noisy, rules and instructions don’t get in the way of imaginative play and you can make just about anything with enough bricks.

LEGO Star Wars Trifighter Droid (8086)

It’s tempting to go for some of the large themed packs of Lego, which cover a wide range of popular themes, including Atlantis, Prince of Persia and Star Wars. These packs are beautifully presented and buying into a theme like Batman can sometimes make all the difference to a kid who usually prefers videogames.

Lego Make & Create Café Corner

There are, however, a few sticking points with the boxed sets. To start with they tend to be quite expensive and usually involve setting players the fixed task of constructing the model shown on the box. Kids and parents can then find that imaginative fun turns into following a lengthy set of instructions. There’s some compensation in achieving, and playing with, the end result but it’s generally best to avoid being too overambitious first time round.

LEGO Star Wars Clone Walker Battle Pack (8014)

Apart from the basic cost, Lego’s themed packs can also present a problem in terms of how to get more use out the bricks. Once you’ve finished building and playing with a themed pack you’ve to decide whether to set the pack aside or mix it into your overall collection. The first option means getting less use out of the bricks as part of your overall collection, while the second option makes it almost impossible to find all the parts from one set amongst everything else. In addition, there are often a lot of specially shaped bricks in theme packs, which may not be of much use when making your own Lego models from scratch.

LEGO Racers Ferrari 430 Spider

As a result, it seems best to start with smaller themed packs unless you definitely have a kid who’s a real enthusiast. In that case a $100 – $150 pack is an ideal introduction to the world of more expensive but rewarding ‘Luxury Lego’.