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 ...
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 ...
Pretend Snow Sensory Play with Trains
For our first post for the Winter Play Days series, we took our trains out to play in real snow. Today's play idea is a way to echo that experience any time of the year with pretend snow for a fun sensory activity with a little science thrown in. I'll share a few tips for using pretend snow with toy ...
Winter Train Play in the Snow
Here we are at the beginning of another fun series of seasonal play ideas: Winter Play Days! This week, we're teaming up with Fun-a-Day!, Fantastic Fun and Learning, Nothing if Not Intentional, My Nearest and Dearest, and Buggy and Buddy to share some great winter activities for kids. For our first ...
Top Train Activities for Kids 2013
As 2013 comes to a close, it's been fun to look back on all the articles I've written for Play Trains! and see which ones were the most popular with you, our readers. I've loved hearing from many of you throughout the year as the fun we've had in our train adventures has inspired play time in homes ...
Holiday Breakfast Train Activity for Kids
For our second activity for the Christmas Play Days series, we've put a train twist on a family tradition by putting our beloved holiday breakfast on a toy train. This is a fun Christmas morning activity that works just as well for birthdays (the photos of the activity are from the Little Engineer's ...
Outdoor Fall Train Play — Fall Invitations to Play
For our final activity in the Fall Invitations to Play series, I saved the simplest invitation of all. It also happens to be the closest to my heart, inspired by something the Little Engineer has done every year since his love of trains began. Fifty years from now, I see myself watching the leaves ...
Play Dough Pumpkin Patch Train — Fall Invitations to Play
I'm very excited to be part of a series of Fall Invitations to Play this week. Along with four of my blogger friends -- Ann from My Nearest and Dearest, Stephanie from Twodaloo, Shaunna from Fantastic Fun and Learning, and Chelsey from Buggy and Buddy -- we'll be sharing five ways to invite kids to ...
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 ...
Toy Train Freight from Nature: Late Summer
Warm breezes, blue skies, and -- most importantly -- dry ground: there's no better time to take toy trains outside to play in Seattle than the second half of summer. It's also the best time of year for incorporating objects from nature into train play. There's an abundance of things growing that can ...
Painting with Trains on Canvas
Painting with trains or other toys with wheels is nothing new -- and this certainly wasn't the first time we did it -- but here's the Little Engineer's latest twist on it. His ideas led the project deeper into the realm of pretend play, and resulted in a pretty cool end product. Not that the ...
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.