at the risk of sounding like a parrot with turrets syndrome, let me say again that things continue to be all about trains with ozzy. sometimes buses, construction vehicles, and any type of truck, but morning, noon, and night, it's mostly trains.
his sheer enjoyment of the trains would alone have been enough for me to indulge him in his passion, but there's been other benefits as well.
playing with trains and watching the thomas shows has helped with language, social skills, story sense, color recognition, discrimination, to name a few. he holds conversations with the trains and btwn the trains. when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to go downstairs and 'play with trains." he greets them lovingly, saying, "Hello Thomas. Hello Percy. Welcome to Island of Sodor!"
he serenades his his favorite train, Gordon with the song You Are My Sunshine, but changes it by adding Gordon's name. "you are my Gordon. my only Gordon. you make me happy when skies are Gordon. you never Gordon. how much i Gordon. please dont take my Gordon aWAY!"
he has also learned about feelings and facial expressions from the thomas series. (Emily is happy! Percy is sad! Gordon is angry!)
i'm not sure that he's really learned right from wrong and good vs bad though. one episode where thomas "biffs" (new word i learned from the show...means to punch. see, i've been learning a lot too) a coal truck named HECTOR off the track, and then Thomas feels really bad about it and apologizes and helps HECTOR back on the track. i was hoping ozzy would learn that hitting is not nice and that's why thomas felt sorry, but instead of feeling compassionate, he's all like "HAHAHA!! THAT'S FUNNY!" and shortly thereafter, i see ozzy setting his trains on the track and then swinging his favorite train, Gordon, like a club to punch train after train off the tracks, going "HA HA! THATS FUNNY!" so the lessons might not be the right ones, and i do have to intervene and assign "good" "bad" "mean" "nice" to the trains actions since i dont think the right messages always sinks in!
i like the narrative format of the story, tho. i just bought him some thomas the train books and when we came home i left them on the floor. he goes to them, opens one up at the beginning and says, "Once a tiiiiiime, james on track! oh, hello Thomas! Welcome to Island of Sodor!" flips to the end and says, "End."
so i'm more than happy to keep buying up new trains and track pieces. i see a lot of benefits from them and they really hold his attention like nothing else does. the world of toy trains was a bit daunting though. i had no clue what to get and nor which pieces work together and which do not and only knowing that all those pieces add up and costs a small fortune.
not that long ago, a friend passed along her sons' old thomas set, consisting of blue plastic tracks and plastic trains which has since been discontinued over the years, and thus beginning my foray into the world of thomas and friends... an unbelievably large and complex world of trains for kids. from what i have gathered, the newer plastic trackmasters series have brown tracks and they come with adapters to connect to the old blue tracks (which you can still buy from ebay and craigslist). both the newer plastic battery powered trains and the remote controlled trains will run on these tracks.
the wooden thomas trains will also run fine on the trackmaster tracks, but they have different couplers (magnetic as opposed to the hook and eye on the plastics). while the wooden trains do run on the plastic rails, the wooden tracks (made by learning curve) do not connect to the trackmaster tracks (made by tomy).
in addition to the wooden train sets (which can get pricey...one wooden Spencer train that ozzy wanted was $40!), and the trackmaster sets, are the plastic Take Along Thomas sets with the die cast metal trains with magnetic couplers. they are scaled quite a bit smaller though and will not work with either the wood or plastic train sets. we do have a few of those sets though because i like the idea of being able to fold it up and take it with you. the plastic rails dont connect very securely though and are always slipping off of each other. i dont know if it's the size or the the feel of them, but ozzy doesnt seem to enjoy playing with them as much as the plastic and wood sets.
of all the trains he has, he really likes the motorized train cars. i thought he would like the remote controlled one and i bought a few of those trains but in the end i think i prefer the regular motorized trains the best, too. those can be pushed around or switched on to run by themselves. the downside is that ozzy likes to switch them all on and then walk away and leave the trains to run and run and run all day.
ozzy does like the remote controlled trains, too, but it can be a pain because they need to be reset every time you leave them off for a little while. that and the sound effects cant be turned off so you have this constant loud chuffing sound to have to endure while the trains keep running. another downside is that these trains are not meant for push play like the regular motorized trains. if you try to push these you encounter some resistance and loud ratchetting. however, these are nicer than the regular motorized ones in that they can run backwards, stop, and go at will and they are equipped with one button to play the thomas theme song and another button to toot the train's horn.
the plastic track set can be a bit flimsy, but ozzy takes care of them so it hasnt been a problem. but the wooden set seems to have way more destinations and cool gadgets and sets. some of the wood trains have train recognition technology. Sir Topham Hat recognizes a train as it passes by a destination and greets the train by name and compliments or commands the train. you need to have both the trains and destinations that have this technology for it to work.
it's definitely a fascinating world and not likely something that ozzy will tire of soon!
his sheer enjoyment of the trains would alone have been enough for me to indulge him in his passion, but there's been other benefits as well.
playing with trains and watching the thomas shows has helped with language, social skills, story sense, color recognition, discrimination, to name a few. he holds conversations with the trains and btwn the trains. when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to go downstairs and 'play with trains." he greets them lovingly, saying, "Hello Thomas. Hello Percy. Welcome to Island of Sodor!"
he serenades his his favorite train, Gordon with the song You Are My Sunshine, but changes it by adding Gordon's name. "you are my Gordon. my only Gordon. you make me happy when skies are Gordon. you never Gordon. how much i Gordon. please dont take my Gordon aWAY!"
he has also learned about feelings and facial expressions from the thomas series. (Emily is happy! Percy is sad! Gordon is angry!)
i'm not sure that he's really learned right from wrong and good vs bad though. one episode where thomas "biffs" (new word i learned from the show...means to punch. see, i've been learning a lot too) a coal truck named HECTOR off the track, and then Thomas feels really bad about it and apologizes and helps HECTOR back on the track. i was hoping ozzy would learn that hitting is not nice and that's why thomas felt sorry, but instead of feeling compassionate, he's all like "HAHAHA!! THAT'S FUNNY!" and shortly thereafter, i see ozzy setting his trains on the track and then swinging his favorite train, Gordon, like a club to punch train after train off the tracks, going "HA HA! THATS FUNNY!" so the lessons might not be the right ones, and i do have to intervene and assign "good" "bad" "mean" "nice" to the trains actions since i dont think the right messages always sinks in!
i like the narrative format of the story, tho. i just bought him some thomas the train books and when we came home i left them on the floor. he goes to them, opens one up at the beginning and says, "Once a tiiiiiime, james on track! oh, hello Thomas! Welcome to Island of Sodor!" flips to the end and says, "End."
so i'm more than happy to keep buying up new trains and track pieces. i see a lot of benefits from them and they really hold his attention like nothing else does. the world of toy trains was a bit daunting though. i had no clue what to get and nor which pieces work together and which do not and only knowing that all those pieces add up and costs a small fortune.
i hadnt really checked out the brio set, but we do have a Geotrax set made by fisher price that was fun at first but ozzy has lost interest in. the set is okay, but the trains are not that interesting to ozzy, and the tracks are very hard for his little hands to assemble.
we also have a train that i bought from lillian vernon last christmas that ozzy really loves. it looks fairly realistic, is a very large scale train, and it really puffs out smoke as it goes. but it's hard to get the train to sit on the track and keep it on the track. and there's nothing extra that goes with it to build up the set.
not that long ago, a friend passed along her sons' old thomas set, consisting of blue plastic tracks and plastic trains which has since been discontinued over the years, and thus beginning my foray into the world of thomas and friends... an unbelievably large and complex world of trains for kids. from what i have gathered, the newer plastic trackmasters series have brown tracks and they come with adapters to connect to the old blue tracks (which you can still buy from ebay and craigslist). both the newer plastic battery powered trains and the remote controlled trains will run on these tracks.
the wooden thomas trains will also run fine on the trackmaster tracks, but they have different couplers (magnetic as opposed to the hook and eye on the plastics). while the wooden trains do run on the plastic rails, the wooden tracks (made by learning curve) do not connect to the trackmaster tracks (made by tomy).
in addition to the wooden train sets (which can get pricey...one wooden Spencer train that ozzy wanted was $40!), and the trackmaster sets, are the plastic Take Along Thomas sets with the die cast metal trains with magnetic couplers. they are scaled quite a bit smaller though and will not work with either the wood or plastic train sets. we do have a few of those sets though because i like the idea of being able to fold it up and take it with you. the plastic rails dont connect very securely though and are always slipping off of each other. i dont know if it's the size or the the feel of them, but ozzy doesnt seem to enjoy playing with them as much as the plastic and wood sets.
of all the trains he has, he really likes the motorized train cars. i thought he would like the remote controlled one and i bought a few of those trains but in the end i think i prefer the regular motorized trains the best, too. those can be pushed around or switched on to run by themselves. the downside is that ozzy likes to switch them all on and then walk away and leave the trains to run and run and run all day.
ozzy does like the remote controlled trains, too, but it can be a pain because they need to be reset every time you leave them off for a little while. that and the sound effects cant be turned off so you have this constant loud chuffing sound to have to endure while the trains keep running. another downside is that these trains are not meant for push play like the regular motorized trains. if you try to push these you encounter some resistance and loud ratchetting. however, these are nicer than the regular motorized ones in that they can run backwards, stop, and go at will and they are equipped with one button to play the thomas theme song and another button to toot the train's horn.
the plastic track set can be a bit flimsy, but ozzy takes care of them so it hasnt been a problem. but the wooden set seems to have way more destinations and cool gadgets and sets. some of the wood trains have train recognition technology. Sir Topham Hat recognizes a train as it passes by a destination and greets the train by name and compliments or commands the train. you need to have both the trains and destinations that have this technology for it to work.
it's definitely a fascinating world and not likely something that ozzy will tire of soon!
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