What a great week we’ve had! The Little Engineer was on spring break from preschool, so we took advantage of the extra time to play even more trains than usual. He’s been busy building train layouts more and more on his own, telling new train stories of his own invention, and wearing his engineer clothes almost every day. I guess I need to order another one of those hickory-stripe shirts!
I thought it would be fun to share a few snapshots from our adventures and of the Little Engineer’s creations, plus recap the week here at Play Trains! and recommend a few great posts about train activities for kids. So here’s what we’ve been up to this week:
The Little Engineer was surprised and delighted to find the Tacoma Children’s Museum swimming in rubber ducks! Photo courtesy of Linda Petersen.
We made this engine shed from an empty dryer sheet box, saved from our recycling bin. Read how to make your own: Dryer Sheet Box Engine Shed Kids’ Craft for Wooden Trains
On Tuesday, the Little Engineer declared it a “Brio Day” and helped build this layout. It’s so fun to watch him take over more and more of the track building part of playing trains.
Meekat really enjoyed the Brio Day, too! He never misses an opportunity to play trains.
We put together our most complicated control panel for Big Engine yet. Read about our original Big Engine setup: Big Engine: Train Pretend Play on a BIG Scale.
The Little Engineer loved climbing out of this giant chair at the Seattle Children’s Theater, where we saw a fun production of Adventures with Spot with his preschool class.
The Little Engineer’s latest invention, which he dubbed “Bridge Drop”. It was really fun trying to get it positioned just right so the engine would land on the lower track and keep rolling.
Posts from this week:
  |
Other Play Trains! News:
In addition to Facebook and Pinterest, Play Trains! is now on Twitter, Google+, and YouTube. You also can follow my personal Google+ account as well, where I’ll be sharing a wider range of fun activities and ideas for kids.
For my fellow photographers, I’ve started a Play Trains! Flickr group, and you can join me there in sharing pictures of train play!
Links to More Train Fun:
Train Rocks for Teaching Colors You have to see these beautiful and bright rocks and all of Sam from Thrive 360 Living‘s ideas for playing and learning with them!
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles — for GIRLS! I love this post by Rachael from Nothing if Not Intentional about encouraging girls to love big machines.
Train Tracks Small World in a Cardboard Box Check out this fun small world train activity at The Imagination Tree. I especially was taken by the shiny red ribbon on the tunnels!
Early Problem Solving with Trains This is a great activity for getting little engineers to really think about how those wooden train tracks are put together from Jamie from hands on : as we grow.
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.
Great pics, Jessica. Love Meerkat joining in on the fun! We have one or two little friends who seem to make their way into most of our activities.
Also, what a cool rubber ducky pit!
Thanks! I love that Meekat is such a strong character in my mind…if I start getting bored, I just grab the meerkat and let him take over!
Isn’t that cool? And they were ALL OVER the whole children’s museum. It was a tie-in to an Eric Carle art exhibit at the art museum nearby…he has that 10 Little Rubber Ducks book, so they decided to fill the museum with duckies! I’m really hoping they’re still there when we go back this week.