Train-o-love

This train-o-love will be a hit if you have a train lover at your house. I got the inspiration for the idea from a cute train scrapbook paper I had lying around.

Materials Needed: big drawing paper, colored paper and fun scrapbook paper (ours had trains with monkeys on them), markers, crayons, tape, scissors, colored pipe cleaners, and foam heart stickers.

Directions:
1. Cut your cardstock/scrapbook paper into small rectangles and then have your child decorate the rectangles with foam heart stickers, crayons, and markers. (I let my little guy decorate the paper first and then I cut it into smaller rectangles. Either way works).

I drew some hearts on the rectangles for my son and he loved coloring them too.

2. While your child is decorating the rectangles, draw a train engine on a piece of cardstock and cut it out.

4. Have your little guy help you twist colored pipe cleaners into circles (wheels). Twist the ends so that the circles will stay together.

5. Tape two large pieces of drawing paper together (I used double-sided tape) and then draw a train track at the bottom with crayons/markers.

6. I drew two different versions of the train track so that my son could play on one while I did some taping/train assembling.

7. I basically just spaced everything out and taped it with double-sided tape. My little guy added a few finishing touches (like the heart over the engine) and a few more crayon drawings. We also taped the "wheels" on, but you could also glue them.

We were really excited with the finished project and he loves driving his Thomas trains on the track next to the train-o-love.

Language Development:

We talked about colors and shapes during this activity. My little guy was especially interested in the wheels. Since you can bend pipe cleaners into a lot of shapes, we could make them circles, rectangles, squares, and ovals. The pipe cleaners are also all different colors, so we labeled the colors while we worked. The foam hearts are all different, so they offered a lot to talk about- small hearts, big hearts (he called them baby hearts), framed hearts, etc.

If you try this, send along feedback if there are ways to make it cuter or easier.