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 ...
Do You Need a Train Table? — The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide
Do you need a train table? The best decision regarding whether a train table is worth the cost and the space will be different for every family and school. So let's go through the pros and cons of train tables, things I've learned through lots of experience and through talking with other parents and ...
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 ...
I Knew I Shouldn’t Leave My Sketchbook Out Around My Three-Year-Old
"Mama, I wrote on your drawing! I made it better!" At the sound of those words, I stood straight up from where I was cleaning nearby. I stilled the impulse to immediately start yelling, recognizing my fear and my own fault in an instant. "You wrote on my drawing?" I echoed, buying myself time ...
Day Out With Thomas 2013
Another Day Out With Thomas at the Northwest Railway Museum has come and gone. In some ways, this year's outing had no hope of comparing to last year's. But as the day progressed -- and as we overcame a bump in the road -- new joys came to the forefront, showing us how our Little Engineer has grown ...
Blowing Color Steam: Relaxation Technique for Children
This relaxation technique for children is based on Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson's recommendation of teaching anxious children to "blow colors" as a tool to calm themselves down. Please visit her wonderful blog, Seattle Mama Doc, to read Help Your Anxious Child: Blow Colors and watch the accompanying ...
Playing Along with Blue Mountain Mystery
If you've read my other posts, you may have noticed that the Little Engineer and I enjoy playing out stories from the books we read. The same goes for videos and games. The Little Engineer doesn't ask to watch a lot of TV, and while he loves certain games on our iPad, he generally prefers to play ...
Gardening with My Little Engineer
I really like the idea of gardening. But not so much the, you know, work. Actually, it's mostly the idea of the work that I don't like, because like most things in life -- making birthday cakes, writing, getting on with the bedtime routine -- it's not so bad once I get going. Last year, I ...
12 Tips for a Magical Day Out With Thomas
If you don't believe in magic, then perhaps you haven't taken a young, train-loving child to Day Out With Thomas. I urge you to do whatever you can to get to one of these events if you have the opportunity to go. If the day goes well -- and hopefully my list of tips below will help make that ...
Toddler Train Track @ IKEA
If you're anything like me, you'll look at this picture and see a aid for visualizing the shape and size of rugs. At least, that's how I used to see this sight every time I pushed the cart through IKEA. Fortunately, I have the Little Engineer around to see things with different eyes. Eyes that ...
Organizing Wooden Trains and Track — The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide
I had a question over on the Play Trains! Facebook page as to how we store our trains. I had taken a few photos of our system a while back, intending to eventually post them, but this gave me the nudge I needed to take a couple more pictures get this up. By far, my favorite way to store our ...
Because I Love Mama…
The Little Engineer has been very loving of late. After closing circle time at preschool, he's been choosing the heart stamp "because I love Mama." Anything with hearts goes to me, usually with a similar statement of affection. And when we went out shopping recently, he was telling me he loved me ...
Damage-Free Decorating for Wooden Train Layouts
In my post about our Valentine's Day in Vicarstown train layout yesterday, I promised I'd share my secret way to stick things to our wooden trains and buildings without worrying about ruining them. Well, it's not my secret, really. My husband showed me how to do it. Originally, he came up with ...
Speed Up Routines with Tickets for Your Little Engineer
Every so often, I come up with an idea that works really well with the Little Engineer. And then things get better, and I phase the idea out (or, more accurately, I forget to do it because it's no longer necessary at the time). Which is just as well, because most of these ideas stop working so ...
Classical Train Music: Encouraging a Child’s Love of Music
Affiliate links are included below for your convenience. When the Little Engineer was tiny, the days turned into weeks, then months, and I never remembered to do some of the things I had planned to do with my baby. One of those was to surround him with the music we loved in the hope that he'd ...
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.