Lego how old is it

This expansive house-building kit comes with mini dolls, accessories, and furniture. This kit has been discontinued by Lego, but is still available at Amazon and other online retailers. With pieces, the Lego Friends Beach House kit packs in a lot: a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, a rooftop DJ area, and a beachfront yard where two mini dolls—slightly larger and more human-like versions of minifigures unique to the Friends sets—can chill on a hammock or take the paddleboat out from the dock.

Lego Friends sets offer something different from the more archetypal vehicle, rocket, and pirate ship kits that many people associate with Lego. For kids who like making usable crafts, Lego Dots sets are a creative departure from your usual Lego fare.

We tested the Lego Dots Creative Picture Frames , a quick and easy build that lets you make three rectangular frames and then decorate them with bright, organic shapes made from tiny square and triangular pieces. The set comes with enough decorative pieces that kids have plenty of material to continuously redesign their frames.

Sadowsky, the middle-school STEM teacher, told us kids feel a sense of accomplishment when they complete the guided steps in an instruction booklet. Following directions also shows them how different pieces fit together, which lays a foundation for imaginative play later on. This classic starter set comes with pieces in 35 colors, all housed in a distinctive Lego-shaped yellow box. If you want a large variety of brick shapes and colors bearing the Lego brand, the Lego Classic Medium Creative Brick Box is a time-tested choice.

It also offers instructions for a few small projects, including a train, a tiger, and a windmill. Our kid testers who gravitated toward the Medium Creative Brick Box knew that they preferred Lego sets without instructions. They also said that having a wide variety of brick colors was important to them. It also includes small, unusual shapes like arches, flat tiles, and round bricks, whereas generic sets are more focused on the classic square and rectangular bricks.

The Medium Creative Brick Box itself is a large plastic tote. The included pieces fill only about half of it, so you can toss in the rest of your collection as well. Its pieces, which our kid testers reported felt comparable to the real deal, are compatible with real Lego bricks.

This Play Platoon kit comes with pieces in each of 10 bold colors Play Platoon also offers a 1,piece kit with pastel-hued bricks , plus accessory pieces including wheels, windows, and doors. Little hands working on larger creations will appreciate a baseplate , which prevents bricks from breaking apart.

Baseplates can also add another layer to imaginative play—blue plates to represent water, for example, or green to take the place of a grassy field—and make it easier to move Lego builds from place to place. This simple tool makes it easier to pry Lego bricks apart. Some Lego kits, such as the Lego Classic Medium Creative Brick Box , come with a brick separator, which saves your fingernails when two tiny pieces inevitably get stuck together.

Swappable heads and accessories let you create Lego minifigures with a range of occupations, genders, and ages. The Lego Education Community Minifigure Set offers nearly two dozen minifigures dressed for occupations such as chef, farmer, police officer, and veterinarian.

As with all Lego minifigures, the heads, bodies, and accessories in this set are interchangeable, so the blue-haired drummer can become a robber, for example, and the bearded robber can become a drummer. The set also comes with playing cards and other games meant to help children with language development, critical thinking, and social skills. A bulk box like the Community Minifigure Set can expand a minifig collection for a lower cost. This variant of our top pick for drawer organization is also a great way to corral Lego pieces while you build.

Themed Lego sets usually come with several bags of pieces grouped by type or building order. Shangobunmi said that before he starts building a set, he likes to pour each bag into a different compartment in a drawer organizer, which makes the pieces easier to grab while keeping everything systematic. It has rounded corners, which Shangobunmi prefers for preventing small pieces from getting trapped in the corners. Using a tray like the iDesign also makes it easy to set aside your in-progress kit in the middle of a build without the unused pieces getting jumbled up or lost.

This combination of bins and wooden frames, which is a favorite in our guide to toy storage ideas, makes it easy to keep Lego pieces neat and organized. You can store each Lego kit in its own bin or sort pieces by shape and color. The bins are removable, which means you can pull out exactly what you need for each project.

IKEA also sells lids for its Trofast bins, plus a table with drop-in slots for the bins. Lego routinely retires kits from production, though the sets often remain available on Amazon for several more years. This research led us to identify a few key criteria for great beginner Lego sets:. We also decided to test the Play Platoon Piece Building Bricks Kit because of its widely positive reviews and low price compared with Lego-branded bricks.

Bulk boxes of bricks are about volume instead of theme, so they offer the perfect opportunity to save a bit of money and go with a cheaper brand that performs just as well.

A team of Wirecutter staffers observed how the kids played with the sets, including whether they followed the instructions or chose to free-build, and then collected their opinions in a survey. Due to the COVID pandemic, we tested every set ourselves and then shipped each one to a different family to get feedback from kids ages 4 through During each round of testing, we timed how long it took to complete the sets, noted any pain points in the building process or instructions, and considered the size and effect of the final result.

We also leaned on the recommendations of experts and previous Wirecutter reporting for the accessories we recommend in this guide.

Signe Brewster is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering drones, virtual reality, 3D printers, STEM toys, smart-home gadgets, and hobby tools. She previously reported on emerging technology and science for several tech publications with brief stints at CERN and The Onion. She spends her free time quilting and pursuing an MFA in creative writing. Why you should trust us Our favorite themed Lego sets Starter Lego sets for more advanced play Helpful accessories How we picked and tested Sources.

Why you should trust us. Our favorite themed Lego sets. Lego Creator 3-in For the dinosaur lover. Our pick. Lego Creator 3-in-1 Mighty Dinosaurs Three projects in one set This set lets you build three different dinosaurs from a single piece kit. Ages: 7 to 12 Pieces: Lego Creator 3-in A classic pirate ship.

Lego Creator 3-in-1 Pirate Ship An impressively large pirate ship If your child is ready for a larger project, this set comes with three options for pirate-themed builds. Ages: 9 and up Pieces: 1, Disney Lego: A Frozen -themed adventure. Ages: 6 and up Pieces: Ages: 8 and up Pieces: Lego City: A space adventure. Lego City Mars Research Shuttle A classic space shuttle For the space obsessed, this set comes with plenty of side projects.

Ages: 5 and up Pieces: Minecraft Lego: Into the cave. Lego Minecraft The Zombie Cave A Minecraft-themed set for beginners Kids can fight off zombies from the Minecraft universe after completing this quick and inexpensive build.

Ages: 7 to 14 Pieces: Marvel Lego: Spider-Man to the rescue. Lego Friends: A dollhouse-style play set. Lego Duplo sets are larger blocks that are easier to snap together and just right for toddlers. This piece set does a lot of work. The rolling wheels of the train allow for movement and play. The numbers let you work on counting. And a boy, a girl and a cat jump off an accompanying pretend story.

The piece set comes with a small motor and lets kids start or stop the train with a touch. There are also colored bricks that correspond to sounds, lights and action on the train. Once kids move out of preschool, Lego roughly groups sets in two-year increments.

The kits get slightly more complicated — and potentially a lot more expensive — with each subsequent age range. A dog and ice cream scoops are part of the pieces in the set.

The vibrant ice cream truck is an easy build for beginners and offers plenty of moments of play after it is built. This piece set is a mini bank heist with a big getaway vehicle. The monster truck even has a magnet arm, which allows the safe to be pulled away from the building. Older age groups are exposed to more complex series like the Lego Creator series , which offers 3-in-1 sets, for example. In this case, a child can construct a toy store, a cake shop or a flower shop.

I recommend the piece kit because it also introduces the concept of modular and scale building, wherein structures can be linked together in an imaginary city. You make a rocket launchpad — what more do you want? The Lego Creator Expert series is the evolved form of the Creator sets, wherein builders begin to think about design and function.

The 1,piece Mustang set has a working hood and trunk and plenty of hot-rod modifications. But the big draw is that this one will delight kids and the adults who might be building alongside them or after they go to bed.

Young teens and adult fans — along with those coming to the hobby because of limited edition Lego Ideas sets — will find a host of challenging and intricate builds that also bring with them a higher price tag. This set has over 3, pieces. Not to mention, some of the bricks are made of plant-derived plastic. If you're one to get ahead of holiday shopping, consider gifting a seasonal Lego set such as this festive gingerbread house.

It has over 1, pieces and is marked as a "hard to find" item on the Lego website. The intricate set includes a candy-filled exterior, fireplace, candy-style furniture and more. It's also equipped with a gingerbread family to live in the house.

This set is meant for more advanced Lego builders ages 18 and up. If you've got a Star Wars fan or are up for the challenge, it comes with intricate pieces.

Once finished, you can prop it on a coffee table and leave it on display. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.