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DIY wooden train track Christmas ornaments inspired by OLD TRACKS, NEW TRICKS by Jessica Petersen. The decorations are temporary so the tracks can go back to the train set after the holidays!

Book-Inspired Wooden Train Track Christmas Ornament

Today I'm going to show you how kids can make their own wooden train track Christmas ornaments, inspired by my upcoming picture book, Old Tracks, New Tricks. The best part is that the decorations are temporary, which means the tracks can go back to the train set when the holidays are over! ...

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Old Tracks, New Tricks by Jessica Petersen: a wooden train picture book that inspires creative play!

Old Tracks, New Tricks by Jessica Petersen

Old Tracks, New Tricks, is a story about three little wooden train tracks who shake up an old wooden train set. But it's so much more than that. It's a way to inspire children to invent new fun with their old favorite toys, and to value and celebrate the creativity of others at the same time as ...

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Painting with Trains on Ceramics: tips for beautiful kid-made gifts from Play Trains!

Beautiful Kid-made Gifts: Painting with Trains on Ceramics

Painting with trains and other toy vehicles is an excellent process art activity for kids, one that we've enjoyed on many occasions. But what I think is even cooler about painting with toy trains is that the patterns left by the wheels can create beautiful kid-made gifts without putting pressure on ...

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Painting with Trains: a Kid-made Thomas the Tank Engine Candy Cane Christmas Ornament

Painting with Trains: Thomas the Tank Engine Candy Cane Ornament

I'm so happy to be participating in Mama Miss' 10 Days of a Kid-Made Christmas series for the second year in a row! This year, the theme is Ornaments Inspired by Children's Books, and 70+ bloggers are each coming up with an ornament for a different children's book. We decided to stay true to our ...

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Toy Surfboard Summer Craft for Kids from Play Trains!

Toy Surfboard Craft for Kids

This surfboard craft for kids is a great way to bring favorite toys into water play. The Little Engineer had so much fun pretending his toys were really surfing! Plus there's a lot of hands-on science going on, as kids try to get the toys to stand up on their surfboards. It would also be fun to make ...

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Four Seasons Tree Cups for Light Play from Play Trains!

Four Seasons Tree Cups for Light Play

While we were creating and playing with the story cups we made for our light boxes, the Little Engineer particularly seemed to enjoy stacking two or three cups to make little scenes -- the sun cup over a blue sky cup, for example. That gave me the idea to make these stacking tree cups for light ...

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DIY Story Cups for Light Play -- for light table storytelling or pretend play from Play Trains!

Story Cups for Light Play

After I came up with our tiny trains and tracks for light play, I wanted to have some kind of scenery to add to our mini light box train layouts. At about the same time, I saw this wonderful post about Alphabet Cups on the Light Box over at The Imagination Tree. We had plenty of the little plastic ...

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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

Early on, the Little Engineer developed an interest in designing his own wooden trains. I've often wished that LEGO made a train that was compatible with wooden train tracks, but could be customized with any LEGO bricks he wanted to use. The answer was to make our own LEGO wooden train hybrid! By ...

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Add excitement and realism to your child's wooden train layouts with this Recycled Cardboard Box Platform for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains!

Recycled Track Platform: DIY Project for Wooden Train Layouts

Elevation.  It's one element of wooden train layouts that never fails to please, but often ends up frustrating everyone involved.  While we have a few sturdy pieces that add height to our tracks in a reliable manner, most bridges and track supports are liable to be knocked over with the slightest ...

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Train Engineer and Thomas and Friends Easter Eggs from Play Trains!

Train Engineer and Thomas & Friends Easter Eggs

We got to our Easter eggs at the last minute as always, but I'm so glad we did them!  The Little Engineer loved it even more than last year and would have been happy to dye several more dozen eggs. As for me, my Thomas & Friends eggs turned out to be much easier to make than I was expecting. ...

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Train Gifts: DIY Engineer Stripe Heart Pendants from Play Trains!

DIY Engineer Stripe Heart Pendants – Train Gifts

These paper clay heart pendants are really fun and -- surprisingly easy -- to make. I really enjoyed painting them with engineer stripes and other train-themed designs, including Thomas the Tank Engine himself. And the Little Engineer made his own version of the heart pendants, which he proudly gave ...

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DIY Train Track Valentines from Play Trains!

DIY Train Track Valentines

If you're looking for an unusual -- and unusually pretty -- train valentine for your child, these DIY train track valentines might be just the thing! And they're easy to make: all you need are cards (or thick paper) and markers. ...

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Top DIY Train Projects for Kids 2013 from Play Trains!

Top DIY Train Projects for Kids 2013

I'm back with one last list of our most popular posts from 2013: our top DIY train projects for kids! Other than the stuffed animal engineer hats, these are all projects to make for or with kids for their wooden train sets. We've even used the mini light boxes with our wooden trains. Most of the ...

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Top Train Crafts for Kids 2013

I had so much fun putting the Top Train Activities for Kids 2013 post together I decided not to stop there. Here are our top 10 train craft posts from the past year, with ideas that will suit every child: toddlers, preschoolers, school-age children, and up! Many of these crafts can be made by kids ...

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DIY Felt Train Ornament Kids Christmas Craft from Play Trains!

Kid-Made Felt Train Ornament

I let the Little Engineer pick what we'd do for our contribution to Mama Miss' 20 Days of a Kid Made Christmas: Ornaments series. Of all the ideas I suggested to him, he was most excited by the idea of making a felt train ornament, so that's what we're doing today! This is an easy craft that kids ...

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Dress Up Costumes for Toy Trains from Play Trains! A fun way to decorate wooden trains (or other toy trains) without damaging them.

Dress Up Costumes for Wooden Trains

Whether for Halloween or an afternoon of pretend play, kids love dressing up. When the Little Engineer extended the need for costumes to his stuffed animals, I thought, why should they have all the fun? So I figured out a way to make dress up costumes for his wooden trains as well. It's a fun, ...

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DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

DIY Wooden Toy Castles for Trains — Thomas & Friends King of the Railway

These DIY wooden toy castles look fantastic with our wooden train tracks, but they were so easy -- and inexpensive! -- to make. This is a fun project to do with a child, teaching them about measurement along the way, or to give as a gift to round out a train collection with a unique piece. And ...

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KID SAFE Two-Color Oil and Water Discovery Bottles @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com/two-color-oil-and-water-discovery-bottles/ These vibrant discovery bottles contain no lamp oil, using all edible ingredients to make them safe for young children to make themselves!

Two Color Oil and Water Discovery Bottles

These vibrant oil and water discovery bottles contain no lamp oil, using all edible ingredients. This makes them a safe science activity for preschoolers to make on their own! We found some fun train-related things to include in our bottle, but you could make them with any (or no) theme in ...

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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.

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 ...

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DIY removable Troublesome Truck faces for wooden trains. Any Thomas the Tank Engine fan would love this personality upgrade for these freight cars! Another fun DIY train project from Play Trains! http://play-trains.com

DIY Troublesome Truck Face Stickers for Wooden Trains

So easy to make, these DIY face stickers for Troublesome Trucks are a great way to add some personality to a child's wooden trains. ...

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Famous and Fictional Train Engineer Cards @ Play Trains! Creating these “trading cards” based on historical and fictional railroad engineers provides opportunities for figure drawing, writing practice, and the exploration of knowledge gained from books through open-ended pretend play.

Famous and Fictional Train Engineer Cards

The idea for this activity came out of nowhere one Saturday morning. I don't remember exactly what we were playing -- something about Casey Jones or another real-life train engineer, no doubt -- but I remember looking at the Little Engineer and saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if someone made trading ...

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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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