Into the Mind of a Five Year Old

As many of you can relate, my five year old son is crazy about Lego. He likes building sets, making his own little creations, and adding new sets to his collection. He loves minifigs. He loves Lego Star Wars, Legends of Chima, Ninjago, and now Castle Lego. He also likes to talk "investment sets" with me, and one day as I was perusing Amazon, he asked me why my Wish List was full of Lego sets.

When I explained to him how the Wish List worked and what "priority" meant, he said, "Dad, I want to rank my own Lego sets".
 

I started listing the ones he owned, but after a few he interrupted me, saying,

"No, Dad, I mean the ones I don't have. I want to make MY OWN wish list."

Being slightly intrigued about what my big shot Lego connoisseur was cooking up in his brain, I logged onto Lego S@H with him, and we proceeded to go through all of his favorite themes and rank his favorite Lego sets. At first, it was a little abstract for him and we ran into logic problems, i.e. set #1, ranked above set #2, was ranked below set #3 even though #2 was ranked higher than #3. After working out the kinks, he got the hang of it and the original list evenentually grew to include 60 sets!

Before diving into the list, there are a couple of qualifications:

1. We didn't include any sets either he or I already owned. These include four of the non-exclusive Chima sets (Cragger's Command Ship, Laval's Royal Fighter, Wakz' Pack Tracker and Razcal's Glider), 9493 X-Wing, Lone Ranger Commanche Camp, and a boatload of Ninjago sets. The only sets I owned at the time were the Tower Bridge, VW Camper and An Unexpected Gathering. These were all excluded from the list.

2. I think he got a little hung up on set size, although that's probably indicative of how a five year old's mind works - bigger is almost always better.

3. He told me he wants this list to double as his Christmas list. I quickly made him aware that he would NOT get everything on his list.

Without further ado, here are his rankings from his favorite on down:

1. 10236 Ewok’s Village
2. 10237 Tower of Orthanc
3. 70404 King’s Castle
4. 7965 Millennium Falcon
5. 10188 Death Star
6. 10221 Super Star Destroyer
7. 9450 Epic Dragon Battle
8. 10227 B-Wing Starfighter
9. 10225 R2 D2
10. 10232 Palace Cinema
11. 10223 Kingdoms Joust
12. 10937 Batman Arkham Asylum Breakout
13. 79008 Pirate Ship Ambush
14. 10233 Horizon Express
15. 6860 The Batcave
16. 9474 Battle of Helm’s Deep
17. 7879 Hoth Echo Base
18. 10228 Haunted House
19. 10226 Sopwith Camel
20. 60014 Coast Guard Patrol
21. 60004 Fire Station
22. 7939 Cargo Train
23. 7398 Passenger Train
24. 9516 Jabba’s Palace
25. 7498 Police Station
26. 4204 The Mine
27. 9468 Vampyre Castle
28. 60008 Museum Break In
29. 79111 Constitution Train Chase
30. 79010 Goblin King Battle
31. 70505 Temple of Light
32. 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter
33. 4440 Forest Police Station
34. 9500 Sith Fury Class Interceptor
35. 9515 The Malevolence
36. 70705 Bug Obliterator
37. 9467 Ghost Train
38. 79004 Barrel Escape
39. 6857 Dynamic Duo Funhouse Escape
40. 9449 Ultra Sonic Raider
41. 9526 Palpatine’s Arrest
42. 79003 Superman: Battle of Smallville
43. 70403 Dragon Mountain
44. 79103 Turtle Lair Attack
45. 70012 Razar’s Chi Raider
46. 70708 Hive Crawler
47. 79104 The Shell Raiser Streetchase
48. 50006 Legends of Chima game
49. 70402 Gatehouse Raid
50. 79110 Silver Mine Shoot Out
51. 79109 Colby City Showdown
52. 79019 Stagecoach Escape
53. 60010 Fire Helicopter
54. 70401 Gold Getaway
55. 21102 Minecraft
56. 70400 Forest Ambush
57. 70002 Lenox’s Lion Attack
58. 70003 Eris’ Eagle Interceptor
59. 70011 Eagle Castle
60. 79106 Cavalry Builder Set

Congrats for making it this far! I posted this to show one five year old's preference in Lego sets. While I feel he has fairly representative tastes, take it for what it's worth. At the very least, the list can show where Lego may be succeeding with his age group, and where they may be falling short. Here are some of my observations on his list:

1. Ewok Village at 1! After all these years, kids still love Star Wars OT. Also, six of the top ten are SW OT sets.
2. Am I raising the ultimate consumer? Look at the MSRPs of the first 15-20 sets!
3. I can't believe the new X-Wing wasn't higher than 32. As mentioned before, he does own 9493 X-Wing Starfighter, but he's even seen 10240 at the Lego Store, so he knows how big (and cool) that set is.
4. Six City sets settle in just outside the top twenty, and although they are big sets, they're behind most of the other big sets. They seem to occupy the "best of the rest" spot that is after his favorite big sets, but before his favorite smaller sets.
5. He appears to be a burgeoning Castle fan. The new King's Castle comes in at #3, an incredibly high ranking. For those badmouthing the new Castle releases, pre-teen boys is TLG's target audience for this line, and early returns (from my son) are great.
6. My son has never seen either the LOTR or The Hobbit movies, yet Tower of Orthanc clocks in at #2, Pirate Ship Ambush at #13 and Helm's Deep at #16. Apparently, size matters as they say...