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Constructive Playthings deserves an A for the installation of this large white, melamine train table! It arrived flat packed and was quickly assembled by sliding the pieces together because the hardware is already pre-installed. For all of you late night holiday assemblers, you will definitely get to bed early FOR SURE with this table! This table is rather large and does consume a lot of space in our small living area. However, because it is able to be put up and taken down so quickly, it’s easily moved from one room to the other or taken apart to be stored. It can easily accommodate up to 4 children plaything together. I would also suggest using this table as another space in your home when playing other toys, puzzles and games.

Constructive Playthings also included a magnetic wooden train set with the table. Though they arrived on different days and were not shipped together, this magnetic wooden train set contains over 100 pieces. The pieces are made from birch and beech hardwoods and are very soft to the touch without any rough spots. The set also includes straight tracks, curved tracks, bridges, crossovers, freight cars, animals, crossing gates, signs, people and trees. The set is completely customizable and it is suggested for children ages 3 and up.

Here are some suggestions for using this train set with your children to can enhance their development.

– Encourage your child to develop other muscles of their body by not only playing in standing, but playing on both knees or with one knee in front in a half kneel position

– Some children get frustrated with putting together the tracks in a specific design- first place a sheet of paper over the table and once you come up with a simple configuration, trace it, then store any unnecessary pieces in another location so they can rebuild it from their road map in a puzzle fashion, without getting distracted by all the extra pieces

– The set comes with signage that includes a stop sign, pedestrian crossing and traffic light – practice teaching your child the concepts of stopping and looking both ways to make sure there are no pedestrians in the way of the train

– Using the traffic light, call out a different light when their train reaches the light to help their learn whether they should stop, go, or move slowly in an interactive way to role play so they can generalize these skills to real life situations when navigating the community with you

–  In my design I created “road hazards” with trees over the track  to assist children with problem solving or role playing these situations as part of their pretend play scenario’s

Constructive Playthings is giving away a Train Table and Train Set to one lucky reader!  Please consider visiting the Constructive Playthings website to locate great gifts for the holidays while completing your holiday shopping!

Mandatory Entry:

1. Visit www.cptoy.com by clicking on the Constructive Playthings Button to the right and take a look around.  Come back here and tell us what other item a child in your life would love to receive for the Holidays. Remember that by clicking this button you receive a 15% discount off your entire order.

Extra Credit Entries:

1.  Follow Constructive Playthings on Facebook at this link:

2.  Follow ConstructiveMom (realize there is no S at the end of MOM) on Twitter at this link:  

http://twitter.com/ConstructiveMom

3. Follow ToyQueen on Twitter

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4. Follow ToyQueen on Facebook

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Contest ends Friday November 5th, 11:59 p.m. EST

Photo credits to Derek Wilmot at www.derekwilmot.com

I received this train set and train table free from Constructive Playthings for the purpose of a review, though the opinions expressed in this review are purely the bloggers own.