My kids (9 and 11) have a ton of legos- two tables, a big bucket of various bricks, and a variety of special kits collected over the years. I bet we have a dozen tiny Star Wars light sabers! Everything eventually winds up in the big bucket.
They recently really liked a small kit I got from the Barnes and Noble bookstore (on the rack in the kids section that sells Klutz-type products). The kit had a zipper pouch of special pieces and a book with suggestions for useage. I can’t recall the name of the kit but the gears, belts, and unusual pieces were a nice addition. I also saw this kit for sale at Target.
For younger kids, I stick with developing you own ‘big bucket’ of pieces, knowing that any specialty kits will get mixed into the big bucket. For older kids, the kit of special gears, etc, would be a nice addition.
The special kit I bought looked similar to this…I don’t see the bag of pieces in the picture and the cover looks different, but it appears to be much like the kit I bought.
Well, it depends on the kid (and/or the adult) but I have not find the “specialized” sets with their unique pieces to be much of a creativity inhibitor. Now admittedly, when I play with Lego, I tend to build the same thing over and over again and I struggle to work with the fancy pieces. But my son builds really interesting things and he’ll repurpose pieces in innovative ways.
And as for my post above, the sets I was thinking of are in the “Creator” series. The Viking and the Castle sets look like a blast to play with, too. My kid’s into Mars Mission right now. Good aliens!
As a sad 35 year old Lego dweeb, I want to suggest the big tubs o’ regular bricks, but I’ve been making cathedral buildings (and now I’m stuck without enough pieces for my crossing tower on the current overly ambitious project!). Bricks, and they can figure out how to make the tauntauns and X Wing fighters and guns from those.
I found it cheaper and with free shipping, via walletbuddy.com:. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It is a lego kinda Christmas!
( I’d really like to get the Eiffel Tower, but my husband would have his nose out of joint for having something So French and UnGerman in zee house.)