Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought the Lego Prehistoric creatures for my 5-and-a-half year old son as a reward for his effort towards nighttime potty training. The training failed, but he did well with the Legos; he has always been a Lego fan. Even though this Lego set is advertised for age 7+, I figured it was no harder than the easier ones my son had done in the past, except maybe it took longer. (At the time of this writing, Amazon says the toy is for 6+, but you can see right on that picture of the box that it says 7+).
As it turned out, my son had much difficulty in the beginning. He didn't pay enough attention to the instructions, and while he could get away with it in the smaller legos, the big T-Rex required more precision and made him cry in frustration. I told him that he needed to follow the instructions exactly, and I had to fix his mistake several time before he finally finished the T-Rex. Since it stood on two legs, he had trouble making it stand and needed my help again. He spent a total of about 10 hours building it, and while he was proud and relieved when it was done, he declared he would never build the T-Rex again; it was too hard.
The very next day, my son forgot his resolution and decided to tackle the T-Rex project again. This time, he did much better, and finished without any help from me, plus he figured out how to get it to stand too. He was then very proud. This time, it only took him maybe 4 hours.
My son has since spent morning, noon and night building and rebuilding Lego dinosaurs. (The other dinosaurs aren't half as hard or big as the T-Rex.) It's been a week, and he's still enjoying it. In terms of the amount of enjoyment it produced, this Lego set is worth double its money. I highly recommend this product to anyone, although I suggest that the child has some experience with easier Legos first. If your child is a dinosaur fan but has never played Legos, I recommend the Legos Wild Collection for practice, with which they can build all sorts of animals. The Wild Collection is recommended for 6+, but my son had no trouble playing it on his fifth birthday, and it was his first Lego set. In fact, I think even four year olds could have done it if they enjoy mechanical toys. My son can't read but has no trouble following the picture step-by-step instructions.
Tips:
1.Get an utitility box (a craft box with numerous divided compartments) from a hardware store and sort out the pieces by color and size for your kid (under 7). There are 700+ pieces and your child will go crazy searching if everything is just one huge pile. The Lego wild collection comes with a tool to help taking the Legos apart (the dinosaur Lego doesn't), and the job isn't too boring if you do it in front of the TV.
2.Before you kid starts playing, take a good stapler, open it up (there's usually a catch under a stapler to let you straighten it from a narrow "V" shape to a "---") and staple the instruction book as many times as you can alone its spine. If you don't, the center pages are going to come out starting the first day. The Lego people put only two staples in the wide 117-page dinosaur instruction book, and it won't hold no matter how careful your child is. I wish I had thought of this sooner, and the Wild collection instruction book wouldn't be in the 10 different pieces right now, despite my frequent effort with scotch tape.
Considering how many happy hours my son has spent with the Legos, I want to say "bravo!" to the Lego designers who came up with such wonderful, enduring toys. Keep up the good work!
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Lego Make & Create Designer Prehistoric Creatures (4507)Return to the world of the dinosaurs. Create a mighty T-Rex with moveable jaw, head and tail. Then take him apart and build your own incredible world of dinosaurs. Includes 10 instructions and inspiration for 26 models. Includes 719 LEGO pieces.
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