Train Set Letter Play

Do you find your child always playing with trains?  This is my son’s number one requested activity right now – play trains.  While driving the trains around the track, I try to add in a little learning here and there.

My son loves to place things in the cars of the trains.  He had a Melissa and Doug letter puzzle nearby, and here is what happened.

That gave me the idea to place individual letters in the train cars.  As the letter went into the car, he would say its name.  He didn’t need any prompting.  He thought it was super fun that I was driving around the letters.  He pointed and exclaimed, “An I!”

Then, I put other objects in the cars for him to identify.  I asked questions about the objects.

• What color is the car?
• What shape is that?
• What is this?
• What sound does the pig make?

For older kids, you could put letters together to make words.  Aiden liked this, too, even though he’s still a little young for words.  He thought it was great to see the letters run into each other.

Next time you pull the train set out, try to add some learning to your fun!

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