Light Stax Blocks

Light Up Your LEGO

• What: Light Stax Illuminated Blocks
• When: Two years and up
• Why: Enlighten their building enthusiasm
• Where: Amazon

Have you seen the light of the new Light Stax building blocks? They look very similar to LEGO Duplo plastic building bricks for toddlers. So similar in fact, that you can use Light Stax with Duplo bricks. Hurray!

You can only spot the big difference when you look inside the dots that interconnect the pieces. Instead of solid plastic, Light Stax have what look like wires. When connected, it allows the circuit to complete and light up the block. The set comes with a small black building plate with a switch on it. The switch turns the lights on and off, as well as to a flashing or fading setting. Even better, it can be set to turn off after 15 minutes to not use up the battery in one go. (I wish some of our other toys came with that setting.)

Light Stax make fabulous night lights, as long as you don’t mind your kids playing with them in the dark past bedtime. They work well for adult LEGO enthusiasts as well, with the novelty of lighting them up.

The sets only come with square pieces, but they light up our imagination. You can buy a bigger set containing 102 pieces, but you will still only get squares. They play well with all other plastic building bricks.

That means we can now add lighting to our Duplo. Lego houses (and garages and stations, but all the same four-walled shape with roof) occupy the first, second, and third spots in our list of favorite construction for all three of my kids, ages 6.5, 5, and 2.5 years old.