Review: 10696 Creative Brick Box
Posted by Huw,
LEGO recently sent us some Classic sets to review and rather than look at them from an AFOL perspective I thought it would be fun to give them to parents of young children and ask them to review them with their kids. So, in the first of a short series, LEGOmum takes a look at 10696 Medium Creative Brick Box:
Today my two kids (daughter age 10 and son age 7) have build-tested the Lego Classic set 10696 and given it a big thumbs-up. The range of bricks and other bits included in the set is really impressive. The bright, bold colours are fab and the inclusion of lots of quite unusual, more technical and highly useful pieces makes this set feel ultra modern and slick.
My kids were especially mad about the see-through neon blocks because although avid Lego fans they do not have these in their own collection (yet!) They also raved about the wide range of accessory pieces (by this I mean non-standard bits and blocks) which includes wheels (3 different sizes), propellers, small windows, doors, arches, rounded-edge blocks, eyes and even a brick separator tool (though both my kids find these too tricky to use). This is in addition to enough standard Lego bricks to build a small, multi-candy-coloured house or a medium-sized vehicle.
The included instruction booklet provides step-by-step guides to build 5 different models of varying difficulty level ranging from easy to advanced (although the advanced model probably wouldn’t challenge even a youngish super keen Lego kid). It also usefully points to a number of other models for which instructions can be found online. My daughter had no problems constructing the yellow car model from the booklet and said that the instructions were straightforward and easy-to-follow (but she is used to quite advanced Lego Creator sets and recently built the VW Camper Van almost single-handedly).
The real fun comes – as always with Lego – when the kids get into free-form modelling. I think the fantastic colours and pieces in this set really inspired my kids. My daughter built a rather impressive blue submarine (shame it wasn’t yellow) as well as a mini forest temple, the idea for which came from an Indiana Jones movie apparently. My son preferred vehicle modelling, first building a really mini racing car then progressing to a slightly less mini neon tow-truck. Then together the three of us built a rainbow-coloured cottage, which really shows off the fantastic range of colours this set includes. Surprisingly, the kids were so engrossed they didn’t even complain about the lack of a minifigure in the set!
After initially grumbling about the lack of a glazed window piece or a minifigure-sized moveable door in the box (the only moans they had), the kids proceeded to find clever ways to create the features they wanted. It is a real bonus that this set contains such a range of different ‘special’ pieces, because this means there is always an inventive workaround when the exact piece you first had in mind isn’t included.
Finally to finish on a practical note, the storage tub in which the set is sold is stylish and sturdy as well as stackable. This stacking feature could come in very handy because if your kids enjoy playing with this set as much as mine did, it might not be too long before you acquire another box or two!
10696 Medium Creative Brick Box contains 484 pieces and costs £24.99 / US$34.99. Thanks to the LEGO CEE team for providing it for review.
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20 comments on this article
I will only say this... I think they've struck gold with this line.
The LEGO Classic line is amazing. I love the branding and the range of colors. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than "Bricks & More", and it makes it easy to answer the never-ending question from parents about "why don't they have basic brick buckets like they used to?" Answer: "They do!"
I also love the way LEGO is doing cartoon eyes in these sets. Back in the day, there would be printed bricks that could only really convey a neutral expression — you'd need a mouth to convey other emotions. But now, there are a range of eye styles, and they are attached using SNOT so you can rotate them at will. Really allows for a lot more creativity that way!
By branding the supplement with more of the LEGO Friends/LEGO Elves colors as "Creative Supplement Bright", and putting it in the same yellow packaging as all the other sets, LEGO deftly avoids the complaints of gendering gone mad while still conveying which set will give you more of the classic primary colors and which will get you the softer and more nuanced color blends. And thankfully, the larger sets like this one include plenty of both, which is nice because it means that nobody feels marginalized, no matter what their favorite color might be.
I have a three-year-old cousin who's on the threshold of being ready for basic bricks, and I'd love to make the Large Creative Brick Box her first basic brick bucket! It has things like functional doors and windows that are absent from the Medium Creative Brick Box.
I don't like that the airplane windows don't include the glazing. That's necessary to include in my opinion.
I think of these style sets as a good way to bulk up on bricks at a low price.
I know it somewhat goes against the "build whatever you imagine" ethos, but I'm hoping they'll continue this line with lightly-themed sets, e.g. a castle box with a lot of arches, windows, etc., in brown and gray, a construction box with a lot of wheels, hinge bricks, etc., in black and yellow.
Okay I'm sold on getting one of these for my 4-year-old, as she's fully transitioned from Duplo. She's really big into building vehicles with wheels though and I see that the Medium Creative Brick Box has a good amount - but does anyone know if the Large Creative Brick Box has just as many wheels? From the limited pictures on the Lego Shop, it doesn't look like there is as many.
@AMBient_xL:
The Large Creative Brick Box has only six wheels.
@aap: Thank you/Danke!
I gave this to my daughter on April Fool's Day. Mind you, I carefully removed the cardboard and then the bricks, then put the cardboard back. Her reaction when she opened it was priceless.
Yes, I later gave her the bricks.
Nice one RexipsaLoquitur! That's pretty funny.
These are fantastic. When me and my family were away on holiday we bought one of these for my 2 year old and 4 year old to play with on those rainy stay inside days. They absolutely loved it. I did too for that matter :-)
Great review! I'm sure I'll be getting these in the future when my kids get older. Still in Duplo days. :-)
I love that the box can be used for stackable storage. That might be the angle I need to use when trying to convince my wife that we need this....
@ResIpsaLoquitur: Nice! I'm going to have to think of something like that for next year.
I love the lime-green translucent 1x2 bricks.
I hope the kids got to keep what they built!
@binaryeye: If I remember correctly LEGO has released a set composed entirely of wheels and tires. Your castle box idea and the other things aren't too far out of the realm of possiblility.
...this "set" looks like an easy way to get lots of nice parts in a good variety of colors. And it's only $34.99! :O
I picked one of these up at 30% off and was very pleasantly surprised by how much was included, especially the otherwise obscure colours like Bright Light Yellow and Aqua.
I recall the old box of wheels but suspect you could get 4 times the amount on BL/BO for half the price of that old set. The basic wheels and tyres are always dirt cheap on the aftermarket.
My son loves this as well. He is 4. I was happy target has them priced at $29.99.
I hate how it has like ten bricks of one color. I mean, I know color coded building is a little beyond kids, but they should be able to if they wanted to.
But the sad sad thing is try and find a bulk brick option if your kids are building something big/there is nothing this year for bulk brick which is just brick. NOTHING at all!! The older boxes are gone and in our store we have almost nothing left to offer customers for bulk brick really.
I got this set, 10693 - http://brickset.com/sets/10693-1/Creative-Supplement - for my cousin's older of two sons, a just turned five year old. The younger one was just about to turn four, and I got him a Duplo construction themed set. They, of course, and thankfully, share though. If they still like that small sized set as well as they did the week I was staying with them (on vacation out of town), then I will keep my eye out for sales on this medium sized one, or even the largest, 10698.
Personally, I love that these Classics boxes are well below the $0.12-per-brick average. I tend to grab a couple every few months just to replenish my general-purpose brick inventory.
Nah Lego is not close to solving its gender issues just by mixing up colors in the line for younger kids.
The segregation of colors and minifigures between 'boys' and 'girls' themes for older kids would have to end first.