LEGO Friends sets make for fantastic STEAM themed play.
I am a huge fan of LEGO®
products, and LEGO® sets are my favorite gifts to give. This year my nine siblings and I even gave my mom a LEGO® set for her birthday – and she loved it! I know from personal experience that LEGO® bricks are a great way to teach kids about basic engineering, while stimulating all sorts of creative storytelling adventures. LEGO® sets frequently incorporate hinges, and the more advanced sets include gears, pulleys, levers, and more! I was thrilled to try out one of the LEGO® Friends
sets with eight-year-old Emma. We were, fittingly, sent a set that featured the LEGO® Friends character named Emma – a detail that my Emma really liked! We have a couple of other LEGO® Friends sets – Emma’s Design Studio and Stephanie’s Pet Patrol. My kids were particularly pleased that this new set came with both male and female minifigures, because they wanted a character Johnny would be happy to use. The LEGO® Friends line
is targeted to girls and has dramatically increased the number of girls playing with LEGO® bricks, and the more detailed minifigures are the main detail differentiating them from standard LEGO sets.
LEGO Friends STEAM Themed Fun
LEGO® Friends sets break the instructions down into very small parts – perfect for novices to the art of building with LEGO®. Emma plays with LEGO® bricks a lot, but she actually has not built a lot of sets. She really enjoyed this particular set, and found the instructions easy to follow. I sat and watched her build while we chatted about the set, as well as other things that were on her mind. She did ask me to help get the stickers on straight – those can be fiddly! Emma builds all sorts of interesting things with regular bricks, but she liked the polished look of the set, and it also gave her some new ideas of ways she can use our collection of miscellaneous bricks!
Little Anna found the entire process fascinating! I know that in a few years Emma will be sitting there helping her build LEGO® sets!
I have a lot of nostalgia from playing with LEGO® sets as a child – I remember spending an entire summer sleeping with a picture of a LEGO® set that I was working to earn under my pillow. I did eventually earn the set, and while the pieces were lost over the years, I still remember it well. I was particularly enthralled because it included a drawbridge, a secret chamber, a drawbridge, a glow-in-the-dark ghost, and a princess. Fabulous stuff, well worth hours of studying French grammar, handwriting, math, piano, and violin! I know I would have adored these new LEGO® Friends sets, with their attention to detail and storytelling-based design!
Do you build LEGO® sets with your kids? Did you grow up playing with LEGO® bricks?
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I think my girls’ grandparents will be bringing them their very first legos when they visit next week! I know they will love them!!
How exciting! Legos are wonderful!
We LOVE LEGO! We went to the free make and take tonight. My Emma is now also into LEGO Friends, so I now have 2 LEGO lovers in the house!
I need to take my kids to one of those. I hate crowds so we haven’t gone, but I bet it’s worth it.
I think it is great Lego makes sets for girls! I bought the tree house set. I thought it was so cool. It didn’t quite get my daughter “into Lego” but I am sure it would have done the trick for me. We didn’t have Lego is my house growing up until my brother came along. He had lots and lot. They worked their magic, he became an engineer!
Michael was given a tiny Lego set for his birthday by his grandparents, but otherwise we just have very random second-hand Duplo. We had a carpenter friend (who is a HUGE Lego fan) over for dinner and he was very impressed with how imaginative our kids are with our random pieces. He has some nieces who have a lot of the girl-oriented sets and he said he is very disappointed with the sets because they aren’t nearly as open-ended. His observation is that they are put together and played with in very predictable ways. This may be one of those instances where used items meet our family’s needs/ideals better than new.
That said, there are probably some children, girls especially, who may never be exposed to Lego construction without sets that appeal specifically to them. It’s very nice that your children are getting the best of both worlds!
I think there is a huge benefit in kids being exposed to randomly assorted bricks and figures – and I should mention that LEGO actually sent us a bunch of random bricks (the ones you see on the table) along with the set. I find that our sets get built, played with, and then taken apart or added on to in quite unusual ways over time – and I imagine that is what your children would do as well. I do think this line is getting some kids interested in LEGO sets who never would have looked at them before. Several of the LEGO Creator line of sets come with instructions to put the same bricks together in several different ways, which can be a nice in-between for kids who are hesitant to start exploring with pieces on their own.
You know we’re big Lego fans. And the kids’ love comes from me. I’ve strongly considered asking for the Lego Christmas Village sets for myself for Christmas.
Confession: I gave Emma one of those sets for her birthday, because I wanted to play with it (luckily she adored it). They are awesome!
I got Lego Duplo for Aarya when he was a tot, it still is not really played with. I do not know what I could do though :(
Maybe his little sister will play with them more! I could see him enjoying the smaller LEGO bricks, but maybe you could try them at a friend’s house first.
I am so glad there are finally cool Legos for girls!!
These sets definitely make the cool cut!
Smarty LOVES Lego Friends! She has a lot of them including bigger sets such as School. I just wish she played more with them rather than build them and set them aside, but from time to time she does use them for story telling. Her favorite set is a Pet Salon that she actually “remade” into a pet clinic.
My kids would adore the school set! I love that Smarty “remade” the pet salon into a pet clinic.
What was the name of the Lego set you put together? I haven’t seen any Lego Friends sets with boy characters yet, so I’d like to have a look. :)
We LOVE Lego around here, but I have issues with the Lego Friends line (although we do have a couple of sets). It bothers me that many of the sets perpetuate gender stereotypes, relegating the Lego Friends characters into doing a lot of homemaker/caretaker things (sets that include a bakery, restaurant, salon, pet sets, house sets, etc). We have the set that has a science laboratory, but I don’t see that on the website anymore.
Where are the adventures and cool jobs? I know we can mix & match Lego pieces from different sets, but I want to see more female Lego characters included in sets that are astronauts, doctors, race car drivers, archaeologists, police officers, etc. I guess the Lego friends are supposed to be young girls, so they won’t have sets with grown up careers, but what about sets of the girls doing sports, or creating inventions, at least? The latest Lego magazine that my daughter received has a Lego Friends insert in which the girls talk about shopping and picking out a great outfit. Ugh.
Having boy characters in the Lego Friends world is a step in the right direction, although I worry that they will be assigned as boyfriends. In my opinion, romantic relationships are introduced in children’s toys far too early, and I don’t see the purpose.
Ok, rant over. LOL Sorry! :)
We were sent LEGO Friends Set #41056 Heartlake News Van. The boy is the cameraman, and the girl is the newscaster.
Have you tried any of the LEGO Creator or LEGO Education sets? They are wonderful ways to get boy and girl figurines in less gendered constructs, and the Creator line in particular often has delightful details.
Thanks, I’ll check out some of the Creator sets. The Education sets are crazy expensive on Amazon in Canada, but the Creator sets are a bit more reasonably priced.
The news van looks cute, but sigh, a makeup table in the news van? And hard-hitting news about the world’s best cake? Lego can do better than that.
:)
The Easter Bunny brought a set of the new Lego Friends! Kay loved it – and was so proud when she put it together (with just a little help). I love how Anna is so attentive in the pics! So cute!