My 4-year-old, in particular, loved that the photo instructions made it easy for him to know which pieces to find and where to put them, since he’s not reading on his own yet. His big sister read the instructions out loud, and he followed along by looking at the photos. Occasionally, they needed help snapping a small piece into place, but for the most part, they were able to build the catapult all by themselves. Who will win? - The Phoenix '77? The Winged Chariot? The El Scorpio? Or, can you design the ultimate racer to defeat them all? Each of my boys has spent a few hours with this book, the “Essential Lego Elements,” and a big bin of stray pieces. Once you build the basic machines, you can connect them in various ways to create “chain reactions" by combining quintopple and dominoes with trigger and seesaw and ramp, which lets you watch all your hard work in motion. It is exciting to get your normally static Legos moving. My kids had fun figuring out other things to do with their creations, such as swinging the hammer to shoot tire pieces across the room. This activity book has been a huge hit with my boys—even my oldest, who hadn’t touched a Lego in a few years. It’s perfect for inspiring quiet, engaged play.

Children can learn STEM skills while having hours of fun with this LEGO® Gear Bots set, featuring 62 LEGO elements, including axles, cams and cranks, to build a choice of models that move. This award-winning activity book and the included invention blueprints were created through a collaboration between Klutz staff, educators, and 11-year-old kids. Having kids help design these activities makes this product truly kid-inspired and kid-focused, with attention to detail for the building process. There's a pterodactyl with wings that flap, an octopus DJ that's always groovin' to the beat, a monkey with arms that crawl as you roll it along, a yeti with arms that punch up and down, and more. Meanwhile, fun non-fiction content highlights the coolest, fastest, and weirdest cars to ever exist. (Did you know there's a car that runs on coffee??) This book is designed for kids aged 8 and up to enjoy. I would put the age at 10-plus for completely independent use, particularly for the medium to hard projects. Readiness will vary quite a bit from kid to kid. My young 8-year-old needed some hands-on guidance to complete these projects. My 14-year-old son enjoyed challenging his former Lego-obsessed self to help my younger son build these simple machines. They are quite fun to do as a team. My younger son was very proud when he eventually completed (and re-built) several of the projects. With an adult's help, I’d say children as young as in kindergarten could enjoy trying some of these projects.Easy, step-by-step instructions guide kids along as they fold the unique paper characters and connect them to the LEGO gears, axles, cams, and cranks. Once they had it fully constructed, they took turns launching rolled-up balls of paper, some of the leftover Lego pieces, and even their Star Wars action figures. Afterwards, they disassembled the catapult and we started working on building a car. This has been great for my family of multiple kids as each one can take the book and make each machine even if their brother has already done so. Generally, Lego sets, once built, melt into the general Lego population, never to be reunited in that exact way again.