While it may seem your child is just playing, toy train sets have many benefits for your child! Playing with toys isn’t just a way for children to waste time – it’s an essential part of a child’s development.
My boys have been addicted to train sets since they were able to hold onto an individual train toy. We have had wooden train tracks and electric train sets. In fact, I have a sprawling set in my basement right now that the boys set up this weekend! We build it up and then take it down just to start all over again!
Toy Train Sets Benefit Children’s Growth and Development
Toy train sets are one of those toys that have been around for centuries. They’re still popular today, and they don’t have to be complicated and electronic to keep kids captivated! Here’s what makes them such great toys.
Problem Solving
Problem-solving skills are a critical part of life-long success. Every aspect of life involves the ability to solve problems, whether it’s something simple like noticing your clothes are inside out to solving complex problems in the workplace later in life. Problem solving means seeing A and being able to relate it to B.
By playing with a toy train set, your child is able to learn how to build the tracks so the train can continue to move without obstacles. Your child also learns how to organize the trains in a manner that increases the train’s ability to move smoothly. It may take your child time to learn this, but the outcome will last a lifetime.
Creativity and Imagination
Without creativity and imagination, our lives would be boring. We would be unable to create inventions and move forward as a society if we lacked both of these developmental skills.
With the toy train set, your child is able to put train tracks together in a variety of original ways, which are only limited to his or her imagination. Your child can also think of different scenarios for the roles played with the train set, creating stories in their heads relating to the trains and any of their other toys they bring into the mix!
Fine Motor Skills and Dexterity
When your child builds a toy train set, which sometimes involves small objects to create a town or train station that the train travels through, he or she is learning fine motor skills. These fine motor skills are key to many of life’s essential functions. Fine motor skills are those that will allow your child to manipulate objects, and they will need these skills to get dressed, to feed themselves, to draw and so on.
These are just a few of the skills your child will gain from playing with a toy train set! Impressive, huh?
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I agree with you, train sets are great. My youngest is a bit too young though. At almost 17 months he pulls apart what his 5 year old brother has just carefully constructed! : )
I LOVED reading this post! I have always thought that train sets were great for kiddos and I pinned this to my “children” Pinterest board so other parents can find that out, too!
Thanks for the pin 🙂 We’re such huge train lovers in our house to the point that we have two huge bins of wooden trains to build. It literally takes over an entire room when we set it up!
Nice share :). I really enjoyed reading about the train set benefits shared here. Actually I’m planning to buy a train set and it’s good to know about the benefits of having train set.
Very much agree, toy trains is very popular for generations because it has many benefits for kids even in adults. It can enhance the skills on building the train set which they can apply in the future. I still have my brio train set http://toytraincenter.com/brio-train-tables-and-sets/ Which I still play on it even today.
I couldn’t agree more. Toy trains were a big part of my childhood and peaked my interest in technology and art. The result has been a very successful career in chemistry. Another benefit are all the priceless, happy memories I have of all the Christmas layouts that started out as projects for my father and mother and eventually being taken over by me as my skills increased. Today’s virtual reality toys and games have their place but they can’t match the actual reality and intellectual stimulation of toy trains.
Toy trains have continued to play a similar role in the lives of my three sons and now with my grand sons and grand daughters.
I would whole heartedly agree that today’s virtual reality toys just can’t replace the joy my boys have had playing their trains… from wooden tracks to electric trains to even the Lego train sets!
My kids have three of them! They are great.
One of the great pleasures for me as an uncle was to introduce my young nephew (and later on his two sisters) to plastic trains running on wooden tracks. We constructed layouts with the available track and then enjoyed operating the trains. We had bridges, buildings, grade crossings, people, animals, cars and even aeroplanes. My three year old nephew called one engine Operating Thomas to distinguish it from the push-along Thomas. The girls gave us a running commentary on what was happening to the trains. Happy memories.