Train Trip to the Beach

My 2 year old is train obsessed and loves building his Brio track around our kitchen floor. If you are looking for a Christmas or Birthday present for your little one, I would recommend Brio. My son received his Brio track last Christmas when he was one and it has been the gift that keeps giving.

My toddler has been asking recently to go on holiday and because that unfortunately isn’t possible at the moment I created the beach at home for him. This messy play, train based small world activity is for great for toddlers and children and will keep them entertained, playing, exploring and learning on a rainy winter’s day.

Set up

This honestly did not take me long to set up and everything I used was either in our toy box or in the kitchen cupboard.

I used my tuff tray as the base and then built the Brio track. The track I used is a mixture of this set and this one. The trains are a mix of trains from Lidl, Brio and characters from Thomas the Tank Engine. The sea is rice which I had dyed blue and then added different sea creatures into. The river is created from blue vase decorations and the grass where the cow and horse are, is sugar which I had dyed green. I created the beach with quinoa and rice krispies.

My toddler found this activity completely irresistible. He even said to me “Mummy wow train on beach” when he came down from his nap. I didn’t need to do anything but watch him take it all in and then observe has he started to use his imagination. The farm animals had something to eat, the people went into the sea, the trains traveled around the track and the boat sailed around the harbour. All of this imaginative play was unprompted.

Creating this messy play, small world activity reminded me how important and beneficial both of these types of activities are for our babies, toddlers and children. Read more here. This sparked my 2 years old imagination and the language and vocabulary that he has used since this activity is mind blowing. This is an activity I will definitely repeat.