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Lego sets have come a long way since my brothers and I had Lego sets in the UK. Lego UK is an off-shoot of the original Danish firm known as Lego, however, Lego UK may just as well be considered a separate company in its own right. Nowadays Lego sets are a lot better only boxes of interlocking building blocks, Lego sets are themed now to make them more applicable to a child’s particular interests. Lego is seeing a renaissance.

The name ‘Lego’ is not a real word, not even in Danish. Rather it is an acronym of two Danish words “leg godt”, which mean “play well”. It is Lego Group’s name and part of the emblem of the Lego Group.

The Lego Group was the brain child of Ole Kirk Kristiansen in 1932 and the Lego firm has remained in the Kristiansen family’s hands until today. The current owner of the Lego Group is Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the company’s founder.

Lego’s mission statement is the same the whole Lego Group worldwide and that is to:

?Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow?

Lego UK explains this by saying that their ultimate objective is ‘to inspire and develop children to think creatively, reason systematically and release their potential to shape their own future – experiencing the endless human possibility’.

The Lego Group now has over 130 subsidiaries and branches all over the world, one of which is Lego UK. From its unassuming beginnings in a small Danish carpentry workshop in Bilund, the Lego Group has evolved into the fifth largest toy manufacturer in the world, although it is still based in Bilund.

The basic building block of the Lego Group is the famous eight-stud Lego block, which has remained unchanged since 1958. In fact, it is unlikely to ever be modified since it has been calculated that there are over 900 million different ways of combining merely six of these blocks together.

More than 900 million different methods of mixing merely six Lego building blocks of one size and one colour! Think about the potential if you give a child a box of Lego building blocks of diverse sizes and colours.

Lego takes education very seriously and since the Seventies, the Lego Group has spread its product range to include younger and older individuals, The Duplo block is for pre-school children and are large enough for small hands to manipulate and too substantial to swallow.

For older children, teenagers and adults, there are electric motors that can be incorporated into models which can be controlled by computer. One well-known British TV presenter contacted Lego for help in constructing a house from Lego to live in.

In fact, this full-size, twenty foot tall, house was built by 1,000 volunteers using 3,300,000 bricks and everything is made from Lego building blocks. Yes, everything, including a flushing toilet, a sink with taps, the cat and the bread bin.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with Silver Cross Dolls Prams. If you want to know more, please go over to our web site at Doll Prams.

The brain is a bit like an engine, it deteriorates more rapidly through lack of use than regular use. There is nothing wrong with taking a bit of time out to merely sit and think, in fact this mild form of meditation is to be encouraged in our fast-moving world of hustle and bustle, but there is also a need for puzzles and educational toys that stimulate the brain while still being quiet.

Puzzles and educational toys can actually be divided into two age groups – generally speaking: adult and children’s games, although just where you draw the line between these age groups depends on the aptitude of the child. A bright child can be playing chess at eight, nine or ten, whereas that same child may not have a strong enough vocabulary to complete crosswords until it is a teenager.

So, if you want to provide adequate stimulation for a child, you could start off with baby Lego and continue adding to the set until the child considers it no longer stimulating (that is, no longer interesting) which could easily take ten years. There is also Meccano, which is for a somewhat older age group than Lego, but overlaps fairly significantly. Interest in Meccano can also last ten years.

At the same time, you could introduce draughts (checkers) and chess. You will have to decide whether Chess is too much for your child at the moment, in which case you can carry on with draughts and reintroduce Chess a year later. As the child becomes a teenager, the line blurs and teenagers might prefer adult games to children’s games.

Adult puzzles and educational toys are fairly varied. Most hobbies could be called educational in some way or another, although for the purpose of this piece, I will stick with adult puzzles and educational toys that can be played sitting down, say on a normal journey into work or during the lunch break.

There is the Rubik Cube and many variations on the theme. Plenty of people find that struggling to solve the Rubik Cube whilst struggling with a difficulty, assists them solve the difficulty. Some say that this works by diversion.

Crossword puzzles are very good for distraction and will help keep words that you do not use frequently on the tip of your tongue. Some people say that you ought not not look words up, but I do not agree. If you look a word up in the dictionary a few of times, you will remember it and that must do you some good.

Sudoku is a numbers puzzle which is also played in a square like a crossword puzzle. Sudoku puzzles are rated on difficulty from one to five. One is too easy, whilst five is very hard. They require a certain amount of lateral thinking and deduction to solve. They are very good because like a crossword, you can pick them up for ten minutes and set them down again.

If you like Chess or Bridge, these puzzles are also very useful for improving your game or simply helping you to maintain a degree of skill if you do not play so much any more. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, Chess and Bridge puzzles can all be discovered in many of the quality newspapers, so you can keep up with the news and invigorate your mind with puzzles and educational toys at the same time by buying a decent newspaper.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with Lego Keyrings. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Lego UK.