I’ve been intending to rebut Jason Kottke’s “Legos becoming just another single-use plastic toy” post but haven’t had time to round up photographic evidence. Tim Maly and Robin Sloan did a great job of it though. My favorite part of the N.Y. Times article that triggered this discussion states: “The number of different bricks or elements that go into Lego toys has shrunk to less than 7,000 from roughly 13,000, and designers are encouraged to reuse parts, so that a piece of an X-wing fighter from the ‘Star Wars’ series might end up in Indiana Jones’s jeep or a pirate ship.” We started our son with a large stash of vintage bricks from my husband and sister-in-law’s childhood. Then he discovered the Lego store at the mall around the same time he fell in love with the Star Wars movies.
He started asking us, over and over, for the specialized Star Wars sets. I resisted at first, but he was already building space ships and other objects out of his basic blocks on his own, and it was unlikely I would be squashing his creative brain development. So for special occasions and rewards, our son has received many of the small Star Wars sets, mini-figs, and a few of the medium-sized spaceships. Thanks to the international market, the instructions use no words, just diagrams and numbers, so even at four he was able to put the sets together with just a little help on the trickier attachments. I was actually a little horrified that after his first hard-won success at putting together a full ship, he started taking it apart. Then I realized he was doing exactly what I hoped for: he created something entirely different and of his own design.
On his fifth birthday he received three sets and as he was constructing one, he made pieces of another into animals and enemy ships. His designs have become more sophisticated not only because his brain is developing but because of his experience with the sets. He knows how to use hinges and feet and spinning pieces to make mechanical parts and he’s got an amazing eye for symmetry. He has the mini figurines for acting out stories so his play is not just about building things. I can’t wait until he’s ready for Lego Mindstorms and FIRST.