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St. Patrick’s Day Freight for Wooden Trains

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

The Little Engineer and I started celebrated St. Patrick's Day with our trains by decorating a few engines and making some new freight. Here are several easy ideas for ways to incorporate the holiday into any kind of toy train play. ...

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DIY Rainbow Train Set

DIY Rainbow Wooden Train: beautiful, vibrant, non-toxic dye brightens up a wooden train set, inspired by the book 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids! Perfect for playing out the classic board book, Freight Train by Donald Crews.

The unfinished surface of wooden train tracks makes an excellent canvas for all kinds of creativity! And ever since I found a new source for unpainted wooden train cars, I've been working on a number of different DIY train sets to share with you. This first one is the one I'm most excited to share ...

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More St. Patrick's Day Train Activities →

Pencil Box Portable Train Set

Pencil Box Wooden Train Set: a portable, travel-friendly way to bring wooden trains on adventures from Play Trains!

I was getting ready to photograph a different portable train set, one we've taken with us many times in the past, when I had an idea. No, a challenge. I managed to fit a train small world in a pencil box, I thought. I would be pretty awesome if I could fit a complete wooden train set in ...

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Portable Small World: Pretend Model Train Set

Portable Small World: Pretend Model Train Set @ Play Trains! Come see how big the Little Engineer grinned the first time he put together this DIY train set you can take along to play anywhere!

Safari Ltd. generously provided us with a Train Toob to try out. No positive review was required and all my opinions and observations are, as always, my own. When Safari Ltd. offered to send us a Train Toob, the Little Engineer was so excited I knew I had to do something special with it.  I had ...

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Building with Mini Light Boxes: Wooden Train Roller Coaster Tracks

Building with Mini Light Boxes: Roller Coaster Tracks for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains!

The first time we used our DIY mini light boxes with wooden train tracks, the Little Engineer immediately saw the stacking potential (which I hadn't noticed yet). He put one light box on top of another and ran off to get our tallest ascending track to send a train rolling down from the top. We ...

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More Favorite Train Activities →

The Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets 2021

The Play Trains! Guide to Wooden Train Sets: expert advice on the best wooden train set to buy for your little engineer.

Searching for the best wooden train set for your child? I've turned my expert eye on the wooden train sets that currently on the market so that you can make an informed choice. A train set can sound good on paper, but there's nothing like hands-on play to tell you whether it's going to be the right ...

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Wooden Train Tracks — The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide

The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide -- Wooden Train Track: expert advice and product recommendations

If you traveled back in time to my son's toddler days, you would find us on his bedroom floor, surrounded by wooden train tracks. My son: the one clutching at train in his chubby toddler fist as he ran its wheels down the almost-finished track. Me: the one building my masterpiece railway at ...

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Ice Train Play — Winter Fun for Any Season

Ice Train Play @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com/ice-train-play/

Ice and snow have been a recurring theme in our train play, no matter the season. First we froze toy trains in ice and found many different ways to play with snow (real or pretend) and trains. This summer, we made a train out of ice and sent it whooshing around our deck. The logical next step was to haul…

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Floating Word Discovery Bottles

Floating Word Discovery Bottles @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com/ Create a beautiful, relaxing bottle of swirling and floating words to inspire curiosity in young children and creativity in older kids to adults.

I have two fun ideas for discovery bottles to share with you this week. This first one sprang out of the current theme at our house: words, words, words! Writing them. Reading them. Memorizing them. Making them up. Writing them some more. It’s fascinating to watch — well, except for when I’m wiping washable marker off of…

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More Science Activities with Trains →

Jessica Petersen, author of Old Tracks, New Tricks
Hi, I'm Jessica! We're so happy you've climbed aboard the Play Trains! express. Next stop: a trainload of fun and learning for your little engineer!

Our Book!

The Play Trains Ultimate Wooden Train Guide: The Best Wooden Train Tables for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Best Train Tables — The Ultimate Wooden Train Guide

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 - 2023 Jessica Petersen, All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Disclosure

Some product links on this site are affiliate links for products we think are worth checking out. The owner of this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the Lego Brand Retail Affiliate Program. Read our the rest of our disclosure policy here.
Parents' Guide to Building with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms -- how to combine your child's wooden train track and DUPLO, LEGO, or other interlocking building blocks!

Building with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms

An easy, temporary way to turn any wooden train into a LEGO train. A fun design project for kids from Play Trains!

Design Your Own LEGO Wooden Train

Train Track Counting Activity and Busy Bag from Play Trains!

Train Track Counting Activity and Busy Bag

Our Train Videos on YouTube

About Me

Hi, I'm Jessica! While playing trains for the last several years, my Little Engineer and I have had a lot of fun and learned so much together. I'm excited to share our discoveries with other people who have kids who love trains in their lives.

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Our Book!

Recent Posts

  • Best Train Sets for Toddlers
  • The Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets 2021
  • The Best Battery-Powered Wooden Trains
  • Wooden Track Veggie Stack: a Wooden Train Activity
  • 55+ Creative Train Gift Ideas for Kids that Will Make You a Hero

Copyright © 2012 - 2018 by Jessica Petersen

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