Monday, February 9, 2009

Almost warm enough for a convertible

Writing about LEGO and reading about LEGO have something in common- both make you really want to build with LEGO.

And so the Cool Convertible, a Christmas gift to Kate from me, was cracked out last night. The 648-piece Creator set is a sweet white convertible with a roof that opens and closes and a hood that pops up to reveal a "V8 engine."

It's Kate's set, so she's the lead builder on this project. I settled down for an evening of acting as brick monkey, tracking down the parts she needed and regrettably watching "Beerfest," (the movie my dad and I took my brother to for our PG-13 bachelor party). When Kate asked for a piece, I worked on building her part vocabulary, testing her on "washing machines," and "cheese wedges." It turns out to be nearly as fun to help somebody else play with LEGO as it is to build yourself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love the whole "call and response" approach to building. I've passed the language my brother and I developed on to my own daughter, who now knows the difference between a 2x2 brick, a 2x2 flat, and a 2X2 sidewalk piece....

Interestingly, I once participated in a "team building" exercise where you and another coworker had to reproduce a simple Lego structure using the call and response approach -- but without that common dialogue, it was nearly impossible. My reference to a piece as a "red 6-banger arch" -- which my brother would have known immediately -- was hopelessly lost on a State Government Accountant.