Hellos and MOCs with 4 year olds

[The Ronin]

Hello,

I am "The Ronin" aka a white guy from California named Robert. I am in my late 20s, and after being a huge lego fan as a kid I have recently started buying legos again. and by buying I mean two desk tops rapidly filled up with Town (vehicles, the big trucks, the creator houses, and my first modular the grand emporium) and some Kingdoms sets (Basically all of the smaller sets, having a little battle and the Mill Village raid kit and the Medieval Market village forming a medieval town off to the side, which looks great together) I was amused to find out there was basically a term for this already (Dark Ages seems appropriate enough) Aside from the ocasional rare set, like an occasionally cool Star Wars, or some of the ferrari licensed models I had not really bought legos since the mid 90s.

What brought me out was spending a lot of time with my very young niece and nephew (I help them out and practically raised them for a while), I bought them a basic brick set, with a bucket, a minifig with tools, and maybe 450 bricks if I recall correct. Since then they have gotten several other small sets, as they do not actually last long in their hands. They can mostly put them together on their own though. One of the inexpensive sets with lots of bricks and a single minifig (a knight, with instructions to build a small castle and brick built horse, one or two Cars sets, and a few other cheap sets. They have also gotten some of my left over bricks). They have learned that 'Uncle Robert's' legos get built, get set up and kids don't play with them. But I do often play with them, and I have fun trying to build neat things with the rather limited brick selection, while dealing with the fact that they want to touch and manipulate everything themselves.

Today was such a day. I built us a small hodgepodge sailboat, which was piloted by a knight, (maybe hes a viking?) The kids constructed a backstory for him (they are 3 and 4) from questions I asked. His name is Amos, he has to go across the sea to find a home, because his old home got broken... by swords.

It reminds me something I would of made as a child, although I had many more parts and would of spent hours digging for just the right colors and blocks. But today's brick selection is limited, and there is an odd fun of that.

So our brave Knight/sailor crossed the sea and found him self a new house. One with windows, and also one that was a castle incase badmen try to break his house again.

Hmm thats all I can upload, I will show the rest when I find a place to upload the photos. But it is pretty adorable/awesome.

[Brickdoctor]

Welcome to EB! Introductions actually belong here, but you should just wait for a Staff member to move the topic.

As for uploading photos, EB is not intended to be used to host your pics. The highest non-staff rank can only upload 200 kb of files. (and you can read about ranks and their privileges here) You should register with a site such as Brickshelf or flickr, and then embed them. (read how to embed from Brickshelf here)

[The Ronin]

Welcome to EB! Introductions actually belong here, but you should just wait for a Staff member to move the topic.

As for uploading photos, EB is not intended to be used to host your pics. The highest non-staff rank can only upload 200 kb of files. (and you can read about ranks and their privileges here) You should register with a site such as Brickshelf or flickr, and then embed them. (read how to embed from Brickshelf here)

Yeah will do. I think ill set up a flickr account just for playing around. I like to snap pics of casual nonsense that gets thrown together with the kids.

[The Ronin]

Our brave sailor/knight

Some more detail of the cobbled together boat (bring imagination)

He eventually settled down and built himself a House/Castle to keep the badmen from breaking it anymore.

Soon they found themselves a nice living by planting a money tree.

But they got a letter from the police saying money trees were illegal.

So our Knight set off sail once again.

It was fun, not polished, not smooth, not even the right colors but fun. with a 3 and a 4 year old it is challenge to get anything together, but a fun one.

I am sure before to long ill post some real builds. Until then take it easy.

Edited September 7, 2011 by The Ronin