Online Lego Adventure: Confessions of a Non-Techy Mom

Thank you to LEGO® and Technorati for sponsoring this post. Click here to visit The Official LEGO® Channel, the answer to keeping your kids entertained anywhere and anytime. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective.

I have three boys ranging from 2-8 years old. All three of them love LEGO® toys and Lego.com.

All three of them eagerly await to open up a gift on their birthday or Christmas hoping they will open up another Lego gift set.  When I introduced them to the LEGO® channel they wanted to watch it for hours.  There are over 500 videos on it so they could actually watch it for hours and not have to watch the same movie twice.

Okay here’s my confession, go ahead and laugh: I couldn’t figure out the LEGO® channel. Once I show you how easy it is to set up you’re going to say in your sweetest southern voice “bless your heart.”

It was a half day and I work from home so I knew I needed to have various activities planned so I could at least squeeze in an hour of work before dinner time. First on the list, was to explore the Lego Channel with them and create a custom playlist for each of them.

I must admit I am not a computer savvy person.  My little one can text faster than I can. I usually consider myself a smart person who catches on quickly, well not anymore. It had nothing to do with LEGO® Channel my boys figured it out right away, it was just ME.

I followed the instructions on this infographic and most people would have figured it out because the infographic is easy to follow.

When you go to www.youtube.com/Lego this is what you will see:

As soon as my son saw the top bar with Ninjago, Star Wars and City he knew what he wanted me to click on so clicked on Ninjago. He is obsessed with Ninjago figures, vehichles, kits…. He wants them all.  Have you heard of Ninjago. If you haven’t heard of them here are a few of our favorite on his wishlist: (personally I am thankful they have a readers series)

Now back to the LEGO® Channel. You can also click on the upper left corner tab to browse videos or to see the LEGO® videos.

Once you click on a series it will immediately take you to the first featured video or you can go view the other options under the movie to see other movies for the category you chose.  Here we chose the Super Heroes.

Just like the infographic says click on Video Options. Once you do that it will take you to this screen:

Then you will click on the YouTube Add to Playlist tab (as shown above). See I told you it was easy and  all of you tech savvy people are going to laugh at how ridiculous I am for not being able to figure it out right away.

Click on sign in and it will take you to another screen if you’re logged off your YouTube account. Just sign in and then on your screen this will show up:

If you haven’t created a playlist yet it will be blank where mine says “Ethans LEGO® Channel Videos.”  You can create a playlist by clicking  in that blank black box below and then hit Create Playlist. Only click on it ONCE.  I kept waiting for something to happen so clicked on it 10 times. So when I went to the video manager on YouTube guess what I had 10 playlist all named Ethan’s LEGO® Channel Videos, ha, ha, ha.

Now an hour into this, just kidding it took me about 20 minutes to figure it out. Though I am well aware of that a tech savvy person would have done it in 3 minutes.

We are now at the fun part, adding your videos to your playlist. Once you are on the screen shown above you just need to hover over the playlist and you will get a green + sign. Click on it ONCE and it automatically puts it in that playlist. As you can see on my screenshot below it’s not that my son wanted the Legends of Chima video on 10 times on his play list. Guess what I did? I clicked on it one too many times and then discovered that I had the same movie on his playlist 10 times.

You can go to YouTube.com and sign in and view your playlist. Once it was all set up I was able to get in an hour of work done while they explored the LEGO® channel! This is what our looks like at the moment we have 15 movies you can view it here at  Ethans Lego Channel Playlist .

So now that you know how to create this easy LEGO® Channel playlist you may be asking yourself why should I do this. I will tell you why it got three thumbs up in my house.

• It’s free!
• They can be accessed from anywhere the airport, waiting in line, around the house, the car….
• It’s safe. I have to be hovering over my son every time he asks to watch a YouTube video because of the side panel suggested videos that are not always kid friendly.  Here they can explore the LEGO® Channel without me worrying about what they might click on.
• Your child can add whatever LEGO® video he wants to his/her playlist. He loved creating his own picks. You can create a playlist for each child.
• They can do this on their computer, Ipad, laptop…
• Now they can go to their playlist and pick the movies they want without needing me to do a YouTube video search.

Thank you to LEGO and Technorati for being sponsors. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.