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. ...
DIY Rainbow Train Set
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 ...
Alternatives to Gluing Wooden Train Tracks to a Train Table
Many parents decide that gluing wooden train tracks to their child's train table is the way to go. If you've ever watched a toddler playing with a wooden train set -- tracks being pulled apart, bridges getting knocked over, the child getting frustrated, and parents rebuilding the layout over and ...
Building with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms
If your child has ever wanted to be able to combine DUPLO or LEGO blocks with wooden train tracks, good news: there's a new product designed to connect tracks and bricks. Dreamup Toys sent us some of their Wooden Railway Block Platforms to test out, and I'm extremely happy to report that they do ...
Portable Small World: Pretend Model Train Set
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 ...
The Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets 2021
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 ...
Wooden Train Tracks — The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide
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 ...
Ice Train Play — Winter Fun for Any Season
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…
Floating Word Discovery Bottles
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…