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Creative Building Play with DUPLO and Wooden Train Tracks

November 29, 2014 By Jessica Petersen 7 Comments



I’ll bet most families who own both wooden train tracks and DUPLO blocks have thought, “If only there were a way we could combine these!” I know we did, and we’ve tried a few methods of doing it, but none of them worked particularly well. That’s why I was excited when Dreamup Toys emailed me, asking if they could send us some of their Wooden Railway Block Platforms to try out. I was even more excited to see how inspired my son was to build with his DUPLO and wooden train tracks once he got his hands on the platforms!

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea they'd supercharge my son's creativity so much!

We received samples of Dreamup Toys’ wooden railway block platforms in exchange for an honest review of the product. This post contains links to Amazon.com. If you click on one, we will receive a small commission — at no additional cost to you — on anything you buy at Amazon for a certain length of time afterwards. Read our disclosure policy for more details.

 

Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms

I enjoyed building with these so much myself that I wrote a parents’ guide to building with the block platforms, including lots of photos and information about the platforms themselves. But kids don’t need guides for building play — they learn so much from figuring it all out themselves! This is how the Little Engineer chose to do that. (For reference, he turned five a few days after these photos were taken.)

How We Played

As soon as we got the platforms up into our train room (i.e. the other end of my office), he started experimenting with the platforms, tracks, and DUPLO blocks, figuring out how to raise a platform, how tall the different platforms needed to be in comparison to each other, and so on.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

Meanwhile, I built the tallest three platforms, and then we connected our creations up to each other, working together to figure out what adjustments we needed to make to get our designs to work together.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

Next, the Little Engineer started building what I thought was a normal tunnel on another platform at the bottom of the slope.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

It turned out that it was a Train Smasher (or Train Crusher, depending on when you asked him what it was), with the roof of the tunnel attached to a thick center column that he could push down and “smash” anything in the tunnel. Then the roof could be lifted back up and pressed into place from underneath.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

He was extremely proud of this creation, and it was so fun to see him continue to work on it and improve it! He made the column taller, so that it still stuck out after it was smashed down. That made it much easier for him to reset the smasher afterwards.

Creative Building and Train Play with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms 13

We did have a talk about what might happen to the paintwork on his wooden trains if he really smashed them with the Train Smasher. I suggested that he have Thomas pull a freight car full of craft pom poms, so that Thomas could make it through okay while his freight car got smashed. The Little Engineer thought that was a great idea, so Thomas’ paintwork was saved.

After he finished work on the Train Smasher, he built some falling towers of rock on another platform.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

After that, I left the room for a while to take a phone call. When I came back, the Little Engineer had built train tracks and bridges and platforms all over the room! He’s been more into pretend play than building this fall, and before that he was very into building LEGO sets, so this level of excitement about his wooden trains and his old DUPLO blocks is amazing to me. The layout is still continuing to evolve days later.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

Together, we made this cool pair of long slopes, connected at the top in a V-shape by a sharp curve (we used three short curved tracks connected with Suretrack wooden train track clips to hold them together without supports underneath). He had fun racing Thomas and Percy down the two hills.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

He was having so much fun, I couldn’t help but make a video of him demonstrating the Train Smasher and the racing hills:

Since that day, we’ve come up with even more fun things to do with these platforms, and I think it will be a long time before either one of us runs out of inspiration! As well as a wonderful way to encourage creative building play in younger kids, this is such a great way to make both wooden trains and DUPLO blocks new again for kids who are on the older end of the wooden train age range.

When Dreamup Toys sent us these building toys that connect wooden train tracks to interlocking building blocks to review, I knew they'd be cool, but I had no idea how they'd supercharge my son's creativity!

Where to Buy Block Platforms

You can buy the wooden railway block platforms directly from the Dreamup Toys website.

Dreamup Toys logo

Note that international shipping is available: just email [email protected] with the quantity of block platforms you wish to purchase and your address, and you’ll be emailed an invoice.

Read Our Guide to Playing and Building with Block Platforms

Parents' Guide to Building with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms -- how to combine your child's wooden train track and DUPLO, LEGO, or other interlocking building blocks!

If you want to learn more about Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms, or just learn some tips and tricks for how to use them once they get to your house, read our informational post about building with the platforms. There’s a ton of information and lots of photos to illustrate everything I learned from playing with them this week, plus recommendations for DUPLO sets to combine with the platforms.

Looking for more creative train activities for YOUR kids?

Grab a copy of Old Tracks, New Tricks! In the fun, rhyming story, three creative little wooden train tracks stand up to the bossy trains and teach the whole train set that old tracks — and trains! — can learn new tricks. Full instructions for the 20+ “track-tivities” in the story are included in the back of the book, along with an illustrated guide to teach kids how to create their own “track tricks.” You can find tons of extension activities at the Old Tracks, New Tricks website!

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

Filed Under: Engineering Activities with Trains, Fine Motor Activities, LEGO and DUPLO Train Activities, Making Trains Exciting Again, Preschoolers, School-age Kids, Toddlers, Train Obsessed, Wooden Train Play Tagged With: building, building toys, color, Duplo, Lego, track building

« Our Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets UK Edition
Building with Dreamup Toys Wooden Railway Block Platforms »

Comments

  1. Erica says

    December 7, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    do those tracks wooden tracks work with hot wheels cars, too?

    Reply
    • Jessica Petersen says

      December 7, 2014 at 6:41 pm

      I’ll check! I think they’ll work about as well as they do with regular wooden track, i.e. the wheels are the right width for the tracks, but the car bodies ride too low and kind of scrape along on them.

      Reply
      • Erica says

        December 7, 2014 at 7:01 pm

        Gotcha. Thanks!

        Reply
  2. Phyllis says

    January 3, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    I love all the ideas u have given me!!!!

    Reply
  3. Ann ~ Little Worlds says

    May 31, 2015 at 3:23 am

    I can’t believe I only now discovered your blog! It’s genius! I know a few people who have been playing cars and trains for years now. They MUST come and visit! And this product, wow, I can’t wait to show my children, it’s genius!

    Reply
  4. Stephanie says

    November 28, 2016 at 6:55 pm

    This post is fabulous. We were trying to figure out a way to make a reversible table for trains and Legos, and this puts them both together PLUS extra math/engineering/science tie-ins! I absolutely LOVE this! Thank you for the great ideas and photos!

    Reply
    • Jessica Petersen says

      November 28, 2016 at 7:11 pm

      Oh great! I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

      Reply

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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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