Lego
Lego (stylized as LEGO) is a type of building toy created and made by The Lego Group, a company from Denmark. LEGO bricks are colorful plastic building blocks that can be joined together easily to make a tower, house, and more. LEGO bricks are joined together by studs on the top, and holes in the bottom of the brick, commonly known as the brick-and-knob connection. LEGO is the most popular building toy in the world.
Background
The LEGO Group was started by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish toy maker, on August 10, 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called “Lego”, a word coming from the Danish phrase leg godt , which means “play well”. Christiansen made wooden toys for children. He made and sold his first plastic LEGO sets in the 1940s. Since then, LEGO has become very popular and is known and loved by people around the world kids and adults alike.
The company is based in Billund and is owned by Kirkbi, the family company. In 2006, sales were about $1.3 billion. In 2022, they were $9.1 billion. Net profit was $1.9 billion. After the bankruptcy and closures of Toys “R” Us in 2017 and 2018, Lego expanded its network of 317 stores to about 1,000 in 2023.
LEGO bricks come in many shapes, sizes and colors. There are wheels, car screens, plants and mini-figures. LEGO bricks can be joined together in many ways. Vehicles, buildings and even robots can all be built with LEGO bricks.
Every LEGO brick is designed to be compatible with others from any set. New bricks made today can fit with old bricks made years ago. The bricks can join together no matter which set they come from. LEGO has become so popular that people sometimes use the word “Lego” to talk about any sort of building blocks, and in North American English, the term is sometimes pluralized as “Legos”. There are millions of LEGO fans and many LEGO conventions around the world.
LEGO Video Games
Many LEGO video games are being created for different video game systems. LEGO video games usually come from LEGO themes, such as LEGO Star Wars. LEGO Star Wars has six video games. Other LEGO video games include LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Harry Potter, Lego DC comics and Marvel.
Television and movies
A LEGO Cartoon Network show, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, aired from 2011 to 2012, and a second Cartoon Network LEGO show aired in 2013. In 2014, The LEGO Movie was released, starring Chris Pratt, Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, and Liam Neeson. The movie was released on February 7, 2014. Since then, three other LEGO movies have been made, like The LEGO Batman Movie, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, and The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.
Written for younger readers
Lego, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: How Things Are Made
Plastic is required to make the Lego bricks, cardboard for the boxes, paper for the instruction manuals (in some cases) and plastic bags to keep them from spilling while trucks are taking it to the mall or the distribution center.
First, A truck grabs tiny little granules and gets into tall circles called “silos” which look like a drinking glass but it’s metal and much bigger. Different types of granules are in different colours for each type of design. Lego wheels require granules coloured black.
When it’s ready to make the Lego, the granules are removed from the silos and are melted into liquid which is not really tasty. Then it goes into a very complex machine which molds them with extreme force. Molding is when the machines get the liquid to harden and be shipshape in a certain shape.
Then the Lego bricks stay in a huge storage area and robots take them to places where grown-ups like your mum/mom and dad sort the items block by block. The now-sorted stuff go to big trucks that take it to “distribution centres” where the big trucks come in, they keep all of the toys and then smaller trucks often leave the distribution centers.
Then the small trucks go to malls before your mom prepares you for a Lego shopping trip and deliver the Lego sets. Now it’s there. An hour or two later you’re in the mall and you buy the Lego. And when you get home you’re all set for playtime!
Lego is a registered trademark of the Lego Group. The trademark is used here for referential purposes.
Whoops! No Internet references.
- Lego Bricks In The Making. Channel: The Lego Group
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Lego” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
Worksheets, answer keys and printable layouts elsewhere on K5Print are our own work and are not covered by this licence.