[freshyill]

My stepson is 11 and we've bought many sets for him over the years. We have one of those 5x5 Ikea shelves just packed with sets that never get touched. They're more like models than toys. But some of them are also my old pirate lego sets from when I was his age, which I also never touched after putting them together (hence the fact that they're still intact today, though some have been disassembled and reassembled).

A few years ago, however, we decided to just buy him a few of the big bucket sets. So he's got buckets of bricks that get played with, and shelves full of models that collect dust.

We also have a pretty big collection of Duplo blocks, which my 2 1/2 year-old daughter has little interest in, although she loves the Lego.