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Wooden Train Track Stacking with Vegetables -- a fun way to get little engineers interested in veggies!

Wooden Track Veggie Stack: a Wooden Train Activity

What do you do when you want to introduce your children to all the wonderful things that the world has to offer, but all they want to do is play trains? You bring the world to the train set! If anything has ever exemplified this philosophy of mine, it's this wooden train track and toy vegetable ...

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Jingle Bell Coupling Chains for Wooden Trains: a fun, hands-on science exploration for Christmas or any time of year from Play Trains!

Jingle Bell Coupling Chains for Wooden Trains

Here's a jingle bell train activity we did last year, but I never managed to write about the photos -- which means I've been looking forward to posting this for twelve months now! My son has always been very interested in couplers and coupling chains. For a long time, when I'd want him to hold my ...

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Jingle Trains: how to temporarily turn wooden trains into wooden train jingle bell shakers! Fun for ringing along with Christmas carols or for music activities all year long. http://play-trains.com/

Wooden Train Jingle Bell Shakers

We love experimenting with adding other sensory elements to wooden train play. Adding sounds to our trains always is especially fun, and these wooden train jingle bell shakers are no exception. This is the perfect way to get child who loves trains involved in making music, whether that's Christmas ...

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Fall Activities for Kids from Play Trains!

Fall Activities for Kids from Play Trains!

Autumn has been my favorite season for as long as I can remember. Thanks to that, I've come up with a lot of fun fall activities for kids to do with the Little Engineer. Here are several of our favorite autumn sensory, fine motor, and imaginative play activities that we've shared here on Play ...

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Autumn Zoo Train Play from Play Trains!

Autumn Zoo Train Play

Looking through photos from last year, I found this fun fall-themed zoo train activity. The Little Engineer and I came up with it by combining the loose parts from our October Moon Train Play activity with our DIY Zoo Train Set. I thought it was a great way to show how the activities we share and ...

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Apple Harvest Pom Pom Tree Fine Motor Activity from Play Trains!

Apple Harvest Pom Pom Tree Fine Motor Activity

Today, I'm finishing up a year of seasonal pipe cleaner and pom pom trees with this apple harvest pom pom tree. With the "apples" and "plums" to pick, this may be the most interactive one yet, making it a great fine motor activity. I was surprised and delighted when this turned out to be the Little ...

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Super easy way to make a DIY outdoor wooden train "table"...no tools required to make this mini garden railway!

DIY Outdoor Train Table: a Wooden Train Garden Railway

I'm always trying to think of ways to bring the Little Engineer's favorite indoor activities and toys outside. I've wanted to make a "train garden" on an outdoor train table for a long time now. But I was always put off by the thought of all the work it would be to design and build one. Until this ...

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Back to School: Train Backpacks, Lunch Boxes, and More!

Back to School: Train Backpacks and Lunch Boxes

On the first day of preschool, there's nothing quite like the pride of wearing one's very own backpack. It's even more exciting when it's decorated with one of your favorite things. Here is a collection of super cute train backpacks and train lunch boxes for kids who love trains! ...

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DIY pipe cleaner palm trees -- can be a fine motor activity for kids, an interactive summer small world element, or simply a cute craft!

Pipe Cleaner Palm Tree Craft

Every time I think I'm done creating new pipe cleaner trees for our train layouts, I think of another type of tree that seems impossible to make. And so I have to make it, of course! I thought it would be difficult to get these pipe cleaner palm trees to stand up, but they stand up on their own, no ...

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Fourth of July Wooden Train Play from Play Trains!

Fourth of July Wooden Train Play

Happy Fourth of July! As I type this, I'm listening to the fireworks that (still) boom and crackle around our neighborhood. But at least the Little Engineer is finally asleep, instead of running around our backyard in the dark with giant glow stick rings, throwing them in the air and shouting, ...

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These DIY mini beach balls are so much fun for tropical wooden train layouts and summertime small worlds!

DIY Mini Beach Balls

In the midst of trying to get Epic Fun for Kids -- our new blog and YouTube channel -- up and running, I've been making preparations for the coolest summer wooden train layout ever. (At least, I'm hoping that's how it will turn out!) This week, I'm going to show you a couple of the DIY train layout ...

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Top 10 Summer Train Activities for Kids from Play Trains!

Top 10 Summer Train Activities for Kids

This week, we're part of the second annual School's Out: a Top Ten Summer Blog Hop, a series in which kid bloggers share their top activities for summer learning. Last year, I wrote about my Top Ten Ways to Learn with Trains this Summer. This year, I decided to feature some of our ...

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Travel-Friendly Mini Sand Castle Kit from Play Trains!

Travel-Friendly Mini Sand Castle Kit

When we got home playing at the beach with our kid-customized mini sand play set, I realized that the core part of the set could make an even smaller mini sand castle kit. Of course I had to try it immediately! Fortunately, we have a sandbox, so we didn't have to wait. This little sand castle kit is ...

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Customize this travel-friendly mini sand play kit to match your child's interests!

Mini Sand Play Set

The Little Engineer loves playing the sand no matter what, but he loves it even more when we have some sort of grand plan involving his favorite things. The railroad we built in the sand after reading the Peter's Railway books last year was a plan like that, one that he remembers and has asked to do ...

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Summer Pom Pom Tree Craft and Fine Motor Activity from Play Trains!

Summer Pom Pom Tree

For our second post for the Summer Play Days series, I wanted to do a summer version of the pom pom tree activity we've been reinventing with the seasons. This can be presented as a fine motor invitation to play, incorporated into a wooden train layout or another kind of small world, or made into a ...

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

Pencil Box Portable Train Set

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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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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Cherry Blossom Spring Pom Pom Trees: fine motor activity and craft from Play Trains!

Cherry Blossom Spring Pom Pom Trees

Another season, another pom pom tree. At least, that's the way it works around here -- we enjoy creating these so much! This spring cherry blossom pom pom tree was inspired by the flowering cherry tree in our backyard, which explodes into a tower of cotton candy every spring, then lets down a petal ...

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Cherry Blossom Tunnel: Outdoor Spring Activity for Kids from Play Trains! A fun combination of gross motor and sensory play.

Cherry Blossom Tunnel: Spring Outdoor Activity for Kids

We planted a flowering cherry tree in our backyard when we bought our house several years ago.  Somehow, when we weren't looking, it grew into a towering, graceful friend who gives us much needed shade and privacy all summer long. It's easy to forget about the tree in the winter, with it's long ...

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Winter Train Play Ideas: Snow for Wooden Train Layouts from Play Trains!

Snow for Wooden Train Layouts

Of all the kinds of scenery we've come up with to decorate our wooden train layouts, my favorite is most definitely snow. Not only is it pretty, but it's also interactive: trains can plow through the snow on the tracks, or haul it around in freight cars. It also is perfect for inspiring new story ...

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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!

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

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Best Train Tables — The Ultimate Wooden Train Guide

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

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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.
Temporary alternatives to gluing wooden train tracks down to a wooden train table, recommended by Play Trains!

Alternatives to Gluing Wooden Train Tracks to a Train Table

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!

Portable Small World: Pretend Model Train Set

Tree Track: Learning About Trees with Wooden Train Tracks @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com/ The Little Engineer, at 2.5 years old, was enthralled with the whole process for a good hour and a half, and learning about art, biology, and planning and executing a project the whole time! Based on the art installation, "Tree Track", by Christien Meindertsma.

Learning About Trees with Wooden Train Tracks

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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