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I don't want to get him something he might play with for 10 minutes and forget. I want something good
Nerf gun?
iPad mini
LEGO. That is all.
Books, clothes, Disney dvd, nemo or wallE for eg. Floor jigsaw, colouring stuff or paints or some such.
Lego will gather dust once he discovers minecraft
hot wheels kit/bits, dress up gear for him and a friend/friends. 16inch wheel bike? Cheap 2 man tent?
Bike
Scooter
Garden playhouse
Climbing frame
Trampoline
Swing
Imaginext Batcave and other bits
Octonauts playset and other gups etc
Books
Scribble and Write
Whiteboard/chalkboard easel combo
Play table with compartment for stashing stuff away, eg arty crafty stuff
Lego
Seriously? No one has mentioned nerf guns yet?
star wars lego... or octonaughts stuff, voice of experience here. minivader is 6 this year and for the last 2 years it has been the above... HTH
edit : nerf guns 5 and above... thy need the strength to be able to cock the gun, unless battery powered
iPhone?
iPad?
Xbox?
😆
Piano
Decks
Harrier Jump-Jet
Would a dwarf hooker be a bit much????
Wrong
Supersoaker, never too young or old for one of them. 😀
Junior board games, Cranium make some good ones, Tummy Ache and Magic Tooth Fairy spring to mind, Candyland too. More important, make the time to sit down and play them together.
yunki Jr is all about Plants vs Zombies action figures, Angry Birds and Bad Piggies
This is our most wanted by boys in our shop.
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tomhoward - Member
Seriously? No one has mentioned nerf guns yet?
POSTED 32 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST
Yes. The first reply.
We got our 5 yr olds a climbing frame last week - barely been off it since.
Lego.
Our house remains a mine craft free zone in fact I am not really sure what it is but I think it involves a computer or abacus or something.
Second the super soaker.
Space hopper.
Lego, my two played with it endlessly.
Don't get stuff that's too complicated, the age guidance on the box is pretty good.
Just make sure he plays with it on a blanket.
Stepping on Lego pieces barefoot is excruciatingly painful.
Something for outside
I need someone to buy plop trumps for now
Doesn't matter what you buy him, my lad is nearing 6 now, most of his games are made from cardboard boxes by himself. Anything we've bought is mostly secondary to the games.
As above, Lego is good. Although I've spent a small fortune on it in the last few years.
Do you know the LEgo Batman car is £1000
lots of the Lego Batman figures are £40+ ! for a bloody lego figure !
Leffeboy what's this "someone to buy plop trumps for"?
Someone to buy YOU plop trumps surely?
Lego will gather dust once he discovers minecraft
Not a chance, speaking as the father of a soon to be 6 year old lad, Lego is deff the way the to go.
You can't drive a minecraft mining dumper truck round the garden once you've built it!
Someone to buy YOU plop trumps surely?
Excellent point. I wonder if we can persuade CRC to stock it so I can sneak it in with an order...
A huge empty cardboard box! Ours even sleep in it whenever we get one.
SKATEBOARD
Bike?
Nah, scratch that idea, LEGO all the way.
May have to buy plop trumps though (It's the wife's birthday soon 😀 )
Stepping on Lego pieces barefoot is excruciatingly painful.
I find it's better to put slippers on before stepping on Lego bricks. Hurts much less. Amazingly, this works for plugs too.
HTH.
A huge empty cardboard box! Ours even sleep in it whenever we get one.
Add marbles, DIY marble run kit.
We recently bought Plop Trumps for a nephew. He loved it almost as much as we loved the look of disgust on his mother's face 8)
A few big cardboard boxes and some colouring pens.
sleeping bag for camping trips.
it was all about transformers when my lad turned 4....so we bought him optimus prime and bumblebee. that was shortly followed by the rest of the autobots from the movie and then all the decepticon characters.
we also bought him a massive lego set which he still hasnt played with.
The thing I dislike about modern Lego is that the sets are based around building the thing that is pictured on the box.
So what then? You've built it, do you dismantle it and build it again? Do you put it on a shelf and look at it? Do you play with it?
When I was a kid we dreamt up things to build, we used our imagination, not follow a set of Ikea-esque instructions.
The thing I dislike about modern Lego is that the sets are based around building the thing that is pictured on the box.So what then? You've built it, do you dismantle it and build it again? Do you put it on a shelf and look at it? Do you play with it?
When I was a kid we dreamt up things to build, we used our imagination, not follow a set of Ikea-esque instructions.
A lot of the (bigger) kits have at least two ways you can build them, and once built and played with all my kids lego goes into the big box, and there's nothing to stop them building something else with it.
(And the old kits also had Ikea-esque instructions, I can clearly remember following them over 30 years ago...)
OP: A play tent would be good for a 4 year old.
and there's nothing to stop them building something else with it.
I guess not, but so many parts have a very specific use - back in the day the bricks were much more generic.
Biggest current crazes with my lot are:
1. Loom bands
2. Pananini World Cup (cunningly directed by Dad as stickers are 50p whilst Match Attax are a pound. And rubbish).
3. Minecraft. The 4 year old acts as consulting architect to the 8 year old (un)civil engineer.
EDIT: You are never wrong with Lego, I'd go with that. Anything from the Lego movie would be err... AWESOME
Got my niece some little "skate ramps", to bop over on her balance bike. I think she's about 4 or so, she's walking but doesn't drive, anwyway.
Stay clear of electronic gizmos, get him something he can DO and use his IMAGINATION with rather than be dependent on and limited by the parameters set by a programmer.
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The thing I dislike about modern Lego is that the sets are based around building the thing that is pictured on the box.
As opposed to what?
Speaking as someone who built this...
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... last month I can assure you that they always did. The set contains instructions for a main and a secondary model. Imagination not included.
As above, Lego has always had instructions...and like most it seems I;m not alone in building the box models first and then storing it with the rest of the Lego in a plastic bin. (With a large white cotton sheet inside that wraps around all the lego. Makes clearing it up dead easy as you just wrap it back up and slide back into the bin)
The only model I made back up and kept on a shelf was the backhoe model:(not my picture)
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Leatherman or Swiss Army Knife
Air Rifle
Black Widow Catapult
20 Bensons
Some solvents and a paper bag
Everything today's 4 year old could want (note to self must stop reading the DM).
The thing I dislike about modern Lego is that the sets are based around building the thing that is pictured on the box.
What you do is get the odd proper set as a fancy present for birthdays/xmas/whatever, and then every so often get a job lot of random bricks off eBay to just build stuff with.
Bikes and lego have saved my life more times than I care to think about over the past few years. Bikes when it's sunny, lego when it's not, small boy = sorted.
I got a fishing rod when I was 4 from my parents and a small blunt pocket knife from my grandad. We did live in Snowdonia mind next to a beautiful lake.
Whats your budget?
Who is this boy in relation to you? Son, nephew, godson etc. (Informs how special it might be)
It's got to be an Islabike, if you can afford it. With one of those in the garage you're sorted, whenever I ask my 4-yr old what he want't to do it's either "BMX track!" or "Mountainbiking in the woods to ride singletrack and do "big jumps'!" Result.
Note - he started on a scooter bike at 2, a CNOC 14 at 3 and a CNOC 16 at 4 so there's been a bit of progression, I didn't just get him a bike and push him off
As opposed to what?Speaking as someone who built this..
That's Technic.
As above, Lego has always had instructions...
That's, err, Technic.
This is the sort of Lego I remember - yes you could make the thing on the box, but as I said earlier, the blocks were much more generic so you could be inspired by the pictures, follow instructions or just go freestyle and make something. I remember making houses (lots of houses), bridges, cars, windmills, castles, allsorts.
[img] http://www.referenced.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/oldlegobox.jp g" target="_blank">
You can buy bags of second hand Lego by the kilo on eBay. Cheaper than the kits and in my experience you get a great random selection of bits that will encourage imagination. Lego is hard to beat as an open ended toy.
Oh yeah thats right the old stuff didn't have instructions did it: 🙄
1236 Garage with box and instruction from 1955
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doesnt [s]he[/s]you need a niche bike yet?he will grow into it and you will need to know its safe for him
Oh yeah thats right the old stuff didn't have instructions did it:
I said
you could be inspired by the pictures, [b]follow instructions[/b] or just go freestyle and make something
I never said there weren't instructions, I said the blocks were generic enough to allow imagination to run riot.
Can I see your 🙄 and raise you 😛
Ah, I see what you're saying now. Lego, it used to be shit (I had that set). Then they made clever bricks which let you do really creative things. SNOT revolutionised what you could do with Lego.
But if you want to harken back to halcyon LEGOland days, we've still got Duplo for that sort of thing so it's all good.
20 Bensons
That's a bit irresponsible. Start them off on Benson Lights.
That's a great site for kids gifts. I think I got walkie talkies for my 5yr old nephew.
johndoh - Member
The thing I dislike about modern Lego is that the sets are based around building the thing that is pictured on the box.
Cougar - ModeratorAs opposed to what?
Speaking as someone who built this...
... last month I can assure you that they always did. The set contains instructions for a main and a secondary model. Imagination not included.
Now compare that to the modern F1 car set. Loads of custom pieces which are no use anywhere else.
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Some of the small kits are even worse:
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Go back a few years and that would have been made from about 30 generic bricks instead of about 10 preshaped ones. 🙁
seadog101 - MemberEnd of.
seconded 😀
Quad bike or drum kit.
Yeah, you could never build anything else with that 42000 set.
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But here you go then, problem solved.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-6177-Basic-Bricks-Deluxe/dp/B000T6XNS6
If you can't find a use for the ace new shapes in LEGO then I suggest its you that lacks imagination.
God. Stw argument over Lego... 🙄
To the OP,
Lego
Transformers
Power Rangers megazords
Cheap tablet (the 35quid ones on Amazon)
Water guns
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Some of the small kits are even worse:Go back a few years and that would have been made from about 30 generic bricks instead of about 10 preshaped ones.
But every one of those bits could still be used for something other than its original kit. Looking at it, yeah there's some bits you couldn't get in the 80s but they're all equivalent to stuff you could- that kit would have been a bit more angular but otherwise the same.
People complain about imagination but frankly if you can't take modern lego and build something just as stupid as we used to, it's you that lacks imagination. All our space stations were made out of castles, my last spaceship was a pirate ship hull with bodywork off old blue space lego, and rocket motors bolted to the top and bottom. And it was ****ing [i]awesome. [/i]
gonzy - Memberit was all about transformers when my lad turned 4....so we bought him optimus prime and bumblebee.
Christ, to think it must be 25 years since I spent [i]months[/i] saving up to buy Jazz - only to find it was nigh on impossible to transform him so that he worked as a car. The front wheels just wouldn't line up. Such crushing disappointment, and now the wounds have re-opened damn you!
Ideal present combo for someone else's kids:
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plus
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plus
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8 hours of solid uninterupted Dad time, pick a task and spend the day with your son, anything else inc lego is bullsh1t.