With all of the talk of Legos lately, I thought I would bump this up and give the link to sign up for the free Lego magazine.
http://club.lego.com/en-gb/join/

My ds8 is starting to get into building things more. He has done some basic houses, planes, and cars with no instructions, but he recently spent a whole Sunday afternoon building a semi-truck and trailer using the instructions that came with a kit. I was thinking of getting a book of building instructions for him, but I'll check out the links here first. Doug made a good point that relying on instructions too much can stiffle creativity.

Does anyone have any more ideas to share here?

Love it Mr. Smith!  We'll check that web site out.

My 9yo made an Olympic gold medalist (swimming) the other day (looks like he's wearing a swimming cap, lol). All of their creations crack me up! If Lego hasn't invented it, my boys color, break, switch around pieces, or whatever, to create a person/thing they need for their playtime.

What a great thread!

My 8yo boys LOVE LEGOS!  Speaking of narration, I often hear them acting out our history studies with them.  When we were studying the American Revolution one of them ran out and said, "We need to write to LEGO!"  When I asked why, he replied, "WE NEED MORE REDCOATS!!  The Patriots are fine.  They just wore regular clothes, but WE NEED MORE REDCOATS!!!!"    I told him maybe they should write to the company and ask if they would consider doing history sets...wars, pioneers, Alamo, etc.  Maybe we homeschoolers should do that.  Might get their attention.

I think our favorite Lego resource is Peeron.com. If you set up an account you can enter what sets or parts you have and it stores it in their database. Then you can search for projects that you can build based on what parts you actually have in your collection. Their site contains thousands of scanned instruction sheets from older sets so there's a good chance you can find something that matches what you have.

By the way, we've found that instructions are useful for learning good building techniques, but too much of them can stunt creativity in the long run. A big box of parts is much more fun, educational, and creative than a set made to build only a couple specific models.

And to tie this all in to CM homeschooling... a fun narration variation is to have your kids build a scene out of Legos to narrate what they've read or observed.

THis is amazing, ladies.  My sons, 6yo and 4yo, have only just been allowed to use LEGO at home.  I, too, have stepped on one too many (of my own, as a child) in the middle of the night.  So far, so good: no scarred feet yet.

I'm excited about the LEGO club, and the iPad app.  Thanks for sharing, everyone!

Thank you SO MUCH for all these lego ideas!!  Especially the homeschool class!  My son is now SO EXCITED!  He's always making stop action movies on my camera with his legos, so that this would be the first class we are in should be a lot of fun!

Bookworm.. ROFL... Did that a couple of nights ago walking to close the window in the boys room... OOOeEEE! that smarts!   Ok it was about midnight but I am there with ya!  LOL...

  Love the pulley idea!  My boys were taking dental Floss and Kleenex or plastic bags and making parachutes and dropping them from the top of the staircase. :)  They wanted to go higher!!! LOL...

   You just never know what they are going to create!   :)

                                Have Fun gotta run...

Amy, my 11yo is on the Lego club!  He loves it. 

My kids build so much stuff.  LOL  They have all kinds of books.  They've built lots of things, then worked on and did more stuff.  They once used rope and Legos and pulleys to make a message box that operated between our upstairs, downstairs, and everyone's bedrooms.  It was a riot.  Legos rock--unless you step on one barefoot at 1am.  :0)

I am SO excited about the lego club for homeschoolers!!!!  We live in the middle of nowhere  and my boys are going to love this!!! One city we lived in had one but the boys were too young at the time.  Thanks for the info!!

Amy

If by chance you have an Ipad or Ipod touch, there is a free lego app that has several directions for some small things to build.

Pretty cool!!!

If by chance you have an Ipad or Ipod touch, there is a free lego app that has several directions for some small things to build.

Pretty cool!!!

There's also a free class through CurrClick I think that may interest you.  The class is called Lego Club for Homeschoolers and it meets online every Monday.

http://www.brickshelf.com is a collection of pictures of things people have built.  You can do a search and get ideas for how to build things.

You can find lots of ideas online, print them out and put in a 3 ring notebook full of page protectors. Start with this page full of downloadable instructions from Lego and Family Fun: http://creative.lego.com/en-us/FamilyTime/buildinginstructionssecret/BuildingInstructionsBoxSecret.aspx?domainredir=creative.lego.com

Have fun!