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With grandkids on both coasts who love their old and, of course, new LEGOs, I like to take a peek at what's happening in the LEGO world periodically. While visiting a few sites last night, I had to chuckle when I read a fun and slightly provocative question at The Brick Blogger. Basically, Milo asked whether all the LEGO packages that we can buy our grandkids, such as the Star Wars or Atlantis series, are narrowing the world of the child’s imagination, as opposed to just getting the huge buckets of LEGOs the way they originally came out.
Talk about controversial – the comments were definitely interesting! My opinion? As I wrote in my comment there,
My grandkids love the kits, but once they’ve been made, all their new LEGOs join their old LEGOs in various plastic drawers. I’ve added several LEGOs apps to my iPhone which includes LEGO Instructions. This app provides step by step directions to make new projects from their old LEGOs – lots of fun. And I was delighted when my grandson built a stable out of his wooden blocks and added LEGO characters to make his very own Nativity set…
Speaking of iPhone apps – there are several that have made my "best iPhone apps for kids and grandkids" list. 🙂 They are just plain fun – terrific for a long line, car drive, or wait at the doctor's office for those of us juggling those issues of caring for elderly parents while babysitting grandchildren. 🙂 Just click on the pictures to get more information:
Lego Photo – Free. One of my grandkids favorite LEGO apps – "What would your child’s smile look like made of LEGO® bricks? Or your pet hamster? Capture your child’s moments of brilliance in LEGO bricks.
Here’s an app to immortalize your favorite things and those special moments in LEGO form. Just point the camera, snap a pic, press the button, and watch the masterpiece build!
Then easily share your LEGO portrait with everyone—upload to your social networking pages, send it to grandparents, print it, or tweet about it!
It’s simple, really. Just click your way to a LEGO masterpiece!
For the best results, use photos that are shot at close range against a light solid colored background." 
Bricasso is 99 cents. The grandkids can build virtual LEGO projects and color them using the iPhone. A couple of my grandsons really enjoy doing this during long waits.
LEGO Instructions – Free. This is my favorite of the LEGO apps – we've used this to make a fun dinosaur and a couple of other little projects using their old LEGOs. "This app is a handy tool for those who lost or somehow doesn't get their building instruction for building Lego items.The app includes dozens (over 100) of LEGO schemes for popular LEGO sets which you can make in minutes with your" grandchildren including a chicken, blue bus, dinosaur, and more. 
LEGO Creationary – Free. "How quickly can you guess what’s being built from LEGO bricks? “Roll” the LEGO Dice to find out which of the 4 randomly selected categories you’ll guessing: nature, vehicles, buildings or things. The game starts building an object from that category out of LEGO bricks, and you have to guess which of the four possible answers is correct by tapping the illustration that you think matches what is being built. The faster you guess correctly, the more points you earn. The more you play, the more difficult the game becomes. Guess incorrectly and the game ends. The Creationary board game is an award-winning build-and-guess LEGO game that challenges the imagination, creativity, building and guessing skills of you, your family and friends with more than 300 bricks and accessories."
And here are even more iPhone apps I discovered as I wrote this article. My grandkids are going to love testing these out for me. 🙂
Brickset is free. It allows your grandkids to manage their collection of LEGO sets on the iPhone. Probably best as a gift to the grandkids parents unless you have a set of their old LEGOs at your house as well.
LEGO Ninjago Spinjitzu Scavenger Hunt – This free app lets the grandkids build their own unique ninja and take him into battle against Garmadon and his henchmen.
This is a Batman game with "LEGOs." They have both a Lite version that is free and a premium version that is 99 cents.
I definitely agree with several of the other commenters that there is PLENTY of creativity going on in our Sandwich Generation family when it comes to LEGOs – both real and virtual. And I suspect that will increase as the grandkids get older. So how about you and your family? Do you agree, disagree, or ? AND do you have any photos of grandkid LEGO creations you'd like to share – feel free to leave the links in the comments. We'd love to see them. 🙂
With grandkids on both coasts who love their old and, of course, new LEGOs, I like to take a peek at what's happening in the LEGO world periodically. While visiting a few sites last night, I had to chuckle when I read a fun and slightly provocative question at The Brick Blogger. Basically, Milo asked whether all the LEGO packages that we can buy our grandkids, such as the Star Wars or Atlantis series, are narrowing the world of the child’s imagination, as opposed to just getting the huge buckets of LEGOs the way they originally came out.
