Ottawa
- Robin Sather of Abbottsford, BC, is the certified Lego Expert responsible for the Lego Garden, in Major's Hill Park, at the Tulip Festival this year. His website is http://www.brickville.ca/; Also see Sypdergrrl's blogpost at http://spydergrrl.blogspot.com/2011/05/starting-may-6-lego-community-garden-at.html (as well as her other great posts on cool kids stuff!)
- Local Lego expert Ian Dudley (aka "the Lego Guy") teaches Lego classes and camps around Ottawa (including at Dovercourt) for ages 5-15. Classes range from simple structures and machines to more complex Lego robotics For a great blogpost on a birthday party with "the Lego Guy": see http://danigirl.ca/blog/2010/03/07/best-birthday-party-ever/
- On April 9th of this year, children in Sao Paulo Brazil built a lego tower of 102 feet, beating the Chilean world record; http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/13/toy-tower-worlds-tallest-lego-structure-soars-over-brazil; Apparently former Brazilian soccer star Cafu laid the last block.
History
- The Lego founder Ole Kirk Christiansen was born in 1872 in Billund, Denmark, where the first lego factory was created, producing all wood products.
- Lego first came to Canada via a Lego licensing agreement with Samsonite that lasted from 1962 to about 1972.
- When I was about 3 my parents bought the electric lego train set that was initially marketed in 1968. It was awesome and I wish they'd kept it!
- The best Ottawa store for lego is Playvalue on Carling just past the split; also to be found at http://www.playvalue.com/ (yes, they ship and have previous year's merchandise at sale prices).
- Toys R Us has a good selection as well that has improved vastly in the last couple of years; see http://www.toysrus.ca/ and they ship as well.
- You can shop for Lego online at http://www.lego.ca/ and they sometimes have items after local stores have sold out; they also have sale items and specialty items that are not often retailed (eg the $500 Starwars ship that my son wanted - but did not get - for his 9th birthday).
- There are lots of kids' computer games on the Lego website; they also market a multiplayer online game known as Lego Universe that we did just purchase but have yet to play.
- Chicago has a Legoland discovery center and there are full Legoland theme parks in California and Florida; http://www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com/chicago/en/index.htm.
Instructions and Organization (aka Project Critical)
- Lego instructions for sets dating back to the 1950's (yes, the 1950's) are available on what I consider one of the best lego websites ever, at http://www.worldbricks.com/; They also have great vintage Lego images.
- Lego addictions (they're a good addiction to have) can lead to Lego storage issues. For a great article on solutions see http://jdorganizer.blogspot.com/2007/09/15-lego-storage-options.html.
- If you have multiple children, label the instructions for each set with the owners name and then keep all instructions in a plastic bin. It lessens arguments! Source: personal experience.
