Labeling Legos

[IndoorKitty]

I have two nephews, Chief (3) and Deputy(1). Chief Nephew already has quite the Duplo collection. We gave Deputy Nephew a Duplo sorter box toy for his birthday. Apparently the addition of the sorter box has caused Lego hostilities to break out, so my sister is looking for a way to label the Duplos.

I think a dot of different colored paint on the inside of each brick/figure would do the job. Would the Sharpie paint markers work? Any experience? Better ideas?

[TinaDeanette]

No experience with Legos but my mom used nail polish to mark my boys hot wheels. She just used a different color for each car.

She could put a small dot of polish inside ever Lego?

[Geckmumto3]

Originally Posted by IndoorKitty I have two nephews, Chief (3) and Deputy(1). Chief Nephew already has quite the Duplo collection. We gave Deputy Nephew a Duplo sorter box toy for his birthday. Apparently the addition of the sorter box has caused Lego hostilities to break out, so my sister is looking for a way to label the Duplos. I think a dot of different colored paint on the inside of each brick/figure would do the job. Would the Sharpie paint markers work? Any experience? Better ideas?

My advice would be for her to make all duplos neutral ground. We started going down this path of yours/mine/ours with regard to lego and have ultimately decided to just pit it all together and call it "theirs." Each kid knows which special set is theirs, and we have shelves to hold "untouchable" projects, but the lego in the bins is for anyone to build and play with. My head is reeling just trying to imagine labelling and keeping lego sorted....

[nicolemariep]

Originally Posted by Geckmumto3 My advice would be for her to make all duplos neutral ground. We started going down this path of yours/mine/ours with regard to lego and have ultimately decided to just pit it all together and call it "theirs." Each kid knows which special set is theirs, and we have shelves to hold "untouchable" projects, but the lego in the bins is for anyone to build and play with. My head is reeling just trying to imagine labelling and keeping lego sorted....

Keeping Legos sorted would make my head explode.

[iris0110]

Originally Posted by Geckmumto3 My advice would be for her to make all duplos neutral ground. We started going down this path of yours/mine/ours with regard to lego and have ultimately decided to just pit it all together and call it "theirs." Each kid knows which special set is theirs, and we have shelves to hold "untouchable" projects, but the lego in the bins is for anyone to build and play with. My head is reeling just trying to imagine labelling and keeping lego sorted....

I agree with this. My oldest prefers to buy the kits, build them and then just admire his work. My youngest just wants to build whatever. You can imagine the turmoil in my home caused by legos. I personally hate legos at least partially for this reason. The rule here is that if the kit was purchased by or gifted to a particular child that child can build the set and it is placed up and not to be torn apart or "cannibalized" for parts. All other legos are fair game and belong to everyone. Most toys in this house are shared property.

[IndoorKitty]

Holding all Legos in common would be my approach, but I'm not the mama in this situation. I'm trying to think of ways I can help my sister out by marking the figures and animals before I wrap them.

[SaraElise]

Legos are shared here, if someone built something (kits or otherwise) you are not allowed to pull it apart, but once it is and has been added to the pile, there is no hoarding of pieces and no mine and yours. We share them all.

I seriously would throw them all away before I tried to sort them according to who they belong too.

[stevensmom]

yep we just share here...and deal with it

however I did mark ds's brio train tracks with a mark so we knew whose was whose when we went to inlaws

[happysmileylady]

Can she designate something like...All blue and red duplos belong to chief and all yellow and green belong to deputy?

[IndoorKitty]

So no one knows if the paint sharpie will stay on legos?

I'm not too concerned with the bricks, I just want to mark the animals and the figures. I bought the big education series box of figures to divide up for each kiddo. Sister is really not going to enjoy trying to remember which ethnicity of construction worker belongs to which kid.

Sister may very well move to the "family legos" approach in the future. Deputy is just at the age for this to start being a conflict. Also, Chief is a tenderheart, and Deputy is a Tazmanian Devil. I get the sense that this sharing the legos thing needs some structure at the moment.