Become a Master Builder with LEGO® JUNIORS

It’s no secret that we are a LEGO loving household, and lately one of my biggest challenges has been keeping Simon, my almost-4-year-old, out of his big brothers LEGO stash. It’s not that he isn’t careful or that he will break things, but that he wants nothing more than free reign to be as creative as he wants with all of the parts and pieces, and sometimes that doesn’t sit well with a brother who prefers to keep his sets intact.

I was thrilled to discover that LEGO recently introduced LEGO JUNIORS for younger children. LEGO^® JUNIORS is designed to give children age 4-7 a great first experience with LEGO bricks through iconic, fun and easy to build models. LEGO JUNIORS sets contain quick start elements and numbered pre-packed bags that can be built without help from Mom or Dad – which makes any small builder extra proud.

We received a big box in the mail, and I told Simon that there was a surprise in there for him.

“Are these MY LEGOS?” He was beyond excited to find his very own LEGO sets inside the box!

The JUNIORS sets come with several numbered packages that each contain a manageable amount of bricks for smaller hands to assemble. We started with the Knights’ Castle set.

Simon and Sutton (my seven-year-old) got straight to work assembling the sets together. After putting together the first couple of numbered packages, they opened all of the packages just because they wanted to make a huge pile of bricks, but I imagine that the assembly process would have been even easier if they had stuck to doing one package at a time.

Eventually Sawyer (my eight-year-old LEGO Master Builder) joined in to help them sort and reorganize their jumbo pile.

The LEGO JUNIORS sets might be designed with larger and easy-to-build panel pieces for younger builders, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as fun for older kids, too! Sawyer started “helping” to build the castle set, and eventually he took over and finished while Simon and Sutton started construction on the Pony Farm set.

This time Sutton and Simon worked bag-by-bag to build the Pony Farm, and it came together quickly and easily.

In fact, this was the very first set that Sutton was able to build ALL by himself – no assistance from mom or big brother needed! His confidence was sky high after this accomplishment, and he was inspired to keep building his own LEGO creations for the rest of the afternoon. One of my favorite things about parenting is watching my children grow by leaps and bounds as they realize all the things they are capable of.

These sets allowed for lots of imaginative interactive play long after the initial building phase. Simon thoroughly enjoyed using this catapult to storm the castle, knock the walls down, and rebuild them about a hundred times.

Making and playing are an important part of a child’s development as they discover and learn about the world. It is both the physical experience—being hands on—and the awareness that the world is constantly being built and rebuilt that will help them grow and develop into critical thinkers. Materials like LEGO^® JUNIORS bricks set kids up for successful, non-frustrating, experiences for them to make and re-make. We’re definitely big fans!