I wouldn't say we like Legos in this house. That would be a severe understatement.
From the age of three, the twins recognized what we now know is their "special interest." It started with a small Lego man - or "dudes" as we call them - and a Toy Story Set for their fourth birthday. Just barely past the choking age and we bought them these tiny bricks and despite some fine motor challenges, they were able to put together sets designed for 5-7-year-olds and eventually 7-14-year-old with little help. They would put the set together, take it apart piece by piece, line them up one by one and put the set back together. This went on for hours and hours every day until they became proficient enough to easily manipulate the pieces. I remember watching them thinking there most certainly was Occupational Therapy taking place right before my eyes...and for just the cost of a Lego Set.
As the boys got older, their love of Legos grew with them and nearly every challenge they faced with Autism seemed to find a way to be exercised through Lego play: fine motor, imaginary play, taking turns, transitioning, critical thinking, troubleshooting, and problem solving to name a few. Their world was slightly revolving around Legos. But who says that's a bad thing? They've struggled to accomplish so many things through the help of these little dudes and bricks and I am forever thankful to whoever first came up with the idea to stack pieces of plastic and sell it to kids. It is the boys therapy, their motivator, and their favorite hobby, all in one. And who knows, it very well could be an avenue to a career one day. Just yesterday, one of the twins made his debut "Lego Designer" video. And even if they don't go that route, surely all the skills they are learning will help them in whatever they decide to do.
From the age of three, the twins recognized what we now know is their "special interest." It started with a small Lego man - or "dudes" as we call them - and a Toy Story Set for their fourth birthday. Just barely past the choking age and we bought them these tiny bricks and despite some fine motor challenges, they were able to put together sets designed for 5-7-year-olds and eventually 7-14-year-old with little help. They would put the set together, take it apart piece by piece, line them up one by one and put the set back together. This went on for hours and hours every day until they became proficient enough to easily manipulate the pieces. I remember watching them thinking there most certainly was Occupational Therapy taking place right before my eyes...and for just the cost of a Lego Set.
As the boys got older, their love of Legos grew with them and nearly every challenge they faced with Autism seemed to find a way to be exercised through Lego play: fine motor, imaginary play, taking turns, transitioning, critical thinking, troubleshooting, and problem solving to name a few. Their world was slightly revolving around Legos. But who says that's a bad thing? They've struggled to accomplish so many things through the help of these little dudes and bricks and I am forever thankful to whoever first came up with the idea to stack pieces of plastic and sell it to kids. It is the boys therapy, their motivator, and their favorite hobby, all in one. And who knows, it very well could be an avenue to a career one day. Just yesterday, one of the twins made his debut "Lego Designer" video. And even if they don't go that route, surely all the skills they are learning will help them in whatever they decide to do. 
All that being said, we needed a way to store all of these beloved bricks. I tried by set. I tried by color. I tried in original boxes. I tried in plastic shoe boxes. The result was always a mess, not to mention something they could not keep up themselves, so I ended up being responsible for clean up.
Then we moved to this new house and there is a multi-purpose spare room. You know, the guest room/office/craft room/storage room? Because our youngest is also so interested in Legos as well, it was not an option to keep them exclusively in the twins' room. Plus, Legos in a bedroom just equals a huge mess and they never played with any of the other toys so to alleviate that problem, we designated the spare room as the Lego room.
I fastened the boards on the wall using 3M Command Strips. Now their dudes can climb the walls.
It looks so nice and clean in the pictures, but let's be honest...
Happy Building!
********UPDATE JUNE 2013**********
We have fully turned that room into a game room/lego room so I thought I'd put up some updated pictures
As you can see, we've moved up to three lego shelves.
I made the table from an old train table board and plastic milk crates I bought at Target.
Woody can wall climb! Small display cases were found in Target's dollar section but can also be found at craft stores.
The solution for games: a bookshelf. We try really hard to enforce the rule of one game at a time...
Puzzles and building toys
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