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DIY Angry Birds Costume: Engineer Blue Bird Mask and Wings

This DIY Angry Birds costume took a couple of nights' worth of work to finish, but it was worth it.  Not only did it turn out to be pretty cute, but we'll be using it for pretend play well beyond Halloween. The best part is it combines two of the things my son loves. The Little Engineer and I have ...

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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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Quick and Easy Halloween Train Layout Ideas from Play Trains!

Quick and Easy Halloween Train Layout Ideas

The Little Engineer and I love playing out holidays with our trains. This is our second year making a Halloween train layout, and we had a lot of fun building on what we did last year. Here are several simple ideas to celebrate Halloween at the train table. ...

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Halloween Carnival Pom Pom Tree Play from Play Trains! Includes both a simple invitation to play and a train play activity.

Halloween Carnival Pom Pom Trees Invitation to Play

Our final activity for the Halloween Invitations to Play series is an invitation to create and play with pom pom trees in Halloween carnival colors. I loved this one so much that I ended up doing both simple and train play versions of it. And with the addition of glue, it could easily be a pom pom ...

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Spooky Pipe Cleaner Trees for Halloween Small Worlds and Train Sets from Play Trains!

Spooky Pipe Cleaner Trees — Halloween Craft Tutorial

I love these spooky trees I came up with to go with the Little Engineer's wooden trains, so perfect for a Halloween train set or small world. While they're a little more complex than the evergreen pipe cleaner trees from last spring, they don't take too long to make, and they look so cool in our ...

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Candy Train Game from Play Trains! An open-ended counting and letter-recognition game to play with toy trains.

Candy Train Game: Counting, Letter Recognition, and Reading Practice

The Little Engineer loves dark chocolate so much it's been very easy to convince him not to eat any other kinds of candy. During last year's round of trick-or-treating, I had to point out that we could use non-chocolate candies for craft projects. It was the only way that he would politely accept ...

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Pumpkin Mountain Railroad Building: a Halloween Train Activity from Play Trains!

Pumpkin Mountain Railroad Building — Halloween Train Activity

We're back with another great Halloween train activity: building a mountain railroad on a pumpkin. Well, two pumpkins, in our case. Once I started setting up the train tracks, we were having too much fun not to bring in the second pumpkin! ...

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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!

Our Book!

The Play Trains! Guide to Wooden Train Sets: expert advice on the best wooden train set to buy for your little engineer.

The Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets 2021

The Play Trains! Ultimate Wooden Train Guide -- Wooden Train Track: expert advice and product recommendations

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

The Play Trains Ultimate Wooden Train Guide: The Best Wooden Train Tables for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Best Train Tables — The Ultimate Wooden Train Guide

Copyright

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.
Marble Run Train Play: Quarry Cargo Drop from Play Trains!

Marble Run Train Play: Quarry Cargo Drop

A simple trick to give Lego minifigs a way to ride wooden trains -- from Play Trains!

Lego Minifigures and Wooden Trains: Tips and Tricks

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

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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Recent Posts

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Copyright © 2012 - 2018 by Jessica Petersen

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