To me, Thomas and his friends of Sodor are simply classic. My brother used to have a Wooden Thomas the Train set that we put hours and hours of play time into. Now, 20 years later, Thomas is still around with even more to offer.
When the opportunity arose to review the Thomas Wooden Railway Talking Railway Series Farewell at the Docks set, I thought this would be the perfectlove Christmas gift for my son. Or even my son and daughter combined. I was going to test it out myself to share with you all until Christmas. Instead, I couldn’t stand the anticipation of them opening it and trying it themselves, so much to my kids’ enjoyment we put it together the night it arrived. They it. I decided what I am going to do instead is purchase more pieces and have a giant track set up around the Christmas Tree Christmas morning, courtesy of Ol’ St. Nick.
On to our thoughts. First, I would like to say that this toy is not recommended for children under 3, and many of you know that my daughter is under 3. She is 17 months. We do not let her play with this unsupervised. When we are with her however she has just as much fun as Ryan does driving the trains around the track and filling and un-filling the “Party Supplies” or cargo. Ryan has enjoyed creating several different shaped tracks and he loves using the crank on “Cranky” to load and unload the cargo which in this set happens to be “Party Supplies”. As Thomas or Spencer travel past Cranky and Sir Topham Hatts’ station the child can push the button where Sir Topham Hatt will recognize each engine.
From a moms’ perspective I love that not only does this let their imaginations soar but it is excellent for the hand eye coordination. I watched Ryan piece together the tracks in a fashion that still makes it go around and watched Olivia put the cargo in the trailer just so. I love that it’s not too noisy and they use their own words when pretending to be one of trains. I love that it completely comes apart not only for the set to be put away nicely but for a fresh start the next day.
For more information you can view this set and other fabulous educational but fun toys at Learning Curve. There you will find further details in general and where to purchase.
