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I think the best gift for kids is still Legos. I spent hours building miniature cities, vehicles, homes, train systems, etc. as a kid. My children love them too

I think the best gift for kids is still Legos. I spent hours building miniature cities, vehicles, homes, train systems, etc. as a kid. My children love them too. It's a great way to develop imagination and motor skills. I would personally avoid the branded sets, although that may just be my bias.

Waterluvian 9y ago
Lego taught me many things including how and why to plan ahead. Every child who grew up with Lego has experienced an off by one brick error. :)
- therein 9y ago
  Growing up, I wished I could design my lego projects ahead of time with an interface as simple as what Google SketchUp has ended up coming up with. I wanted to be able to model it and order the required parts with a single click. I think they might have something like that now but they didn't have it back then.
  - mintplant 9y ago
    Yep, LDraw/LeoCAD. http://www.leocad.org/ http://www.leocad.org/ http://www.ldraw.org/ http://www.ldraw.org/
    - icebraining 9y ago
      There's also an official software (not necessarily better, of course): http://ldd.lego.com/ http://ldd.lego.com/
dcwca 9y ago
I also had a strong bias against the sets, I saw them as completely against the spirit of Lego. Why would I want to build the one thing in the picture? Now that I have a 5 year old daughter and we play Lego a lot, I see the value of the sets. They teach discipline, and following the instructions is very challenging for a child, requiring quite a bit of mental modelling, spatial awareness, patience and diligence. A feeling of satisfaction when complete, and a teachable moment when you encourage them destroy the built structure and combine it with your loose brick collection for later reuse. Great toy.
Cerium 9y ago
I'm against legos since they have special parts. duplo blocks are great, since they are all the same and require imagination to see the result.
riku_iki 9y ago
They also released lego boost robotics kit week ago for mentioned age frame, and it is amazing!

Waterluvian 9y ago

Lego taught me many things including how and why to plan ahead. Every child who grew up with Lego has experienced an off by one brick error. :)

therein 9y ago
Growing up, I wished I could design my lego projects ahead of time with an interface as simple as what Google SketchUp has ended up coming up with. I wanted to be able to model it and order the required parts with a single click. I think they might have something like that now but they didn't have it back then.
- mintplant 9y ago
  Yep, LDraw/LeoCAD. http://www.leocad.org/ http://www.leocad.org/ http://www.ldraw.org/ http://www.ldraw.org/
  - icebraining 9y ago
    There's also an official software (not necessarily better, of course): http://ldd.lego.com/ http://ldd.lego.com/

dcwca 9y ago

I also had a strong bias against the sets, I saw them as completely against the spirit of Lego. Why would I want to build the one thing in the picture? Now that I have a 5 year old daughter and we play Lego a lot, I see the value of the sets. They teach discipline, and following the instructions is very challenging for a child, requiring quite a bit of mental modelling, spatial awareness, patience and diligence. A feeling of satisfaction when complete, and a teachable moment when you encourage them destroy the built structure and combine it with your loose brick collection for later reuse. Great toy.

Cerium 9y ago

I'm against legos since they have special parts. duplo blocks are great, since they are all the same and require imagination to see the result.

riku_iki 9y ago

They also released lego boost robotics kit week ago for mentioned age frame, and it is amazing!