For Easter this year, we went a bit lower on the candy and higher on the awesome by putting small but interesting toys in everyone’s basket, in place of yet more chocolate. My daughter got the Hallmark itty bittys Star Trek 50th Anniversary Set (because Star Trek), and my son got a couple of adorable stuffed, triangular animals. Rory opted for bromeliad food (so cuddly). But I wanted LEGO. If you read my other LEGO posts, you know that I lean heavily toward house-oriented or architecture kits, and that I’m usually pretty horrible at coming up with what to build with a freeform set. But I also love little things, so I couldn’t resist the LEGO Classic Quad Pack Building Kit.
The LEGO Classic Quad Pack Building Kit has one each of four different Classic Creativity Boxes, one blue, one red, one green, and one orange. Each box includes dozens of LEGO pieces in the designated color scheme, along with some contrasting pieces, and a booklet with plenty of build ideas, including step-by-step instructions for the three builds shown on the box. Each set builds an animal, a building of some kind, and a mode of transportation. Each kit has the pieces needed to build all three of the builds shown on the box. At the same time. Each kit also has a spare eye, and the orange kit has a few other extra small pieces, just in case anything gets lost.
Each booklet also contains pages with ideas on things to build other than the three examples, along with ideas for building if you mix the sets, creating larger or more varied masterpieces. Even though I started out by building all of the step-by-step builds, the fact that there are very few pieces per set helped me feel like I wasn’t out of my depth with these sets, even if I wanted to go off book(let).
After Easter’s sugar coma wore off, I pulled out the kits and proceeded to build. All four sets arrived in one non-descript, almost generic, monochromatic box, with the four kits tucked inside. Each kit comes with somewhere between 58 and 78 pieces, along with the building guide. Each build is also ranked in difficulty, but, with the tiny number of pieces, even the ones ranked “three LEGO pieces” won’t give you or your kids much trouble. It seems to mean that there are wheels, or you might have to flip the build over partway through. The booklet also introduces you to the designer of each set, which can be instructive to your kids to see that actual people design these creations and get paid to design with LEGO.
None of the sets come with the usual, ubiquitous piece separator, so pilfer one from one of your other kits, or take the builds apart the old fashioned way. You know, the way that destroys your fingernails. Totally worth it.
For when a large freeform building set or a more expensive kit just isn’t in the budget, or not appropriate for the context (e.g., Easter baskets), these tiny LEGO Classic kits are perfect. Plus, since they are rated for ages 4-99, they can help the young kids (or the very old ones) play alongside the rest of the family. And, if you’re like me and are idea-challenged, these tiny kits still provide plenty of build time and maybe just enough inspiration to come up with new ideas.
These kits have all the quality you’d expect to come out of LEGO, but in a small package. I only wish they came with their own carrying cases, as these sets would also be useful for sticking in your bag and entertaining your kid on the go. (Hint: Bring a plastic bowl to contain all the pieces while your kids are building.)
You can buy the sets online, and check out the builds on the LEGO website.
