A few short months ago my children discovered the joy of Legos. And I mean JOY...In an effort to simplify our lives we reevaluated our families toy situation. We had a lot of little stuff that people had either given to them or stuff that had meandered its way to our house in mystical ways that I am still trying to figure out. I was more than thrilled to fill up a couple black trash bags with the majority of the kids toys, and to my surprise, they didn't seem to mind. We left the donation spot (a local thrift store) feeling lighter and pleased with our good dead. So, after the trash bag incident our inventory was as follows: dinosaurs, a dozen or so schleich animals, soft foam building blocks, lincoln logs, and a wooden train set. Knowing that two of my kids had birthdays around the corner, Christian and I decided that we would introduce two new toys in their repertoire. Our objectives were simple 1. Find toys that would grow with them 2. Find toys that can easily be added to. The first choice was rather simple. Legos. I love playing with Legos, Christian loves Legos, what could go wrong?
The collection started small and has grown, and grown, and grown. All
All the kids asked for for Christmas was Legos. All they asked for for their birthdays
were Legos. And, I kid you not, they play Legos every free moment they get.
Ira, our in house artist has even started drawing Lego Minifigures. Its a sickness.
But I love it. I have noticed, that in using the Legos very frequently their number skills
have developed more. They constantly ask to be passed a "6 headed" or "4 headed" block. And the person
doing the passing can pick the desired number out very quickly. Uri's color skills have really taken off.
We sort our Legos by color for building ease, and that little boy can sort them right a long with the "big kids."
I also love to watch them work together to follow building instructions, or even better, build something
straight from their imaginations. All in all I feel like Legos have really been a great addition to our lives.
Did I mention they are great for school? Sydney is studying ancient Egypt now,
and had fun building pyramids all afternoon.
The second new toy to add was a little harder to decide on. After a few
talks with my friend at our weekly coffee date it seemed like a no brainer. We decided to move forward
on Playmobils. I remember playing with Playmobils, probably into my tween at least...maybe longer? There are endless amounts of sets available and seem to stand the test of time. We have used our Playmobil people to act out Bible lessons (Sydney got the nativity set for Christmas), and I love
that really, all of the toys we own now can play together. Playmobil people (in our house at least) are friends with the Lego people,
and they all ride the train, and sometimes log cabins are built for them. There are endless possibilities.
The only down side I have encountered with these toys in the price point. It is expensive to start a Lego or Playmobil collection.
Especially one that can cater to 4 kids. One thing I did (after my coffee friend told me about it) was to sign up for a Borders Rewards card. Its free, and they send out 40-50% off coupons
that can be used on any one item in the store. And guess what they sell there....yep, Legos AND Playmobils. Between Christians and my rewards accounts we were able to
get the kids one set each (either Legos or Playmobils) for Christmas. And we paid right under $50 total for ALL of the kids christmas presents.
So, this was the tale of how we got rid of all of our kids toys, and got cooler ones that we wanted to play with.
errrr. I mean. This is how we simplified our toy situation.
The kids even came up with having a monthly building club. They want to invite friends over to build together.
How fun is that? I am hoping that we can start doing it in the spring, once all this horrible snow is past.
