All aboard the Battat express! For years and years, wooden trains and train sets have chugged along as a childhood favorite — maybe you have memories playing with these timeless toys yourself! Well, there are plenty reasons why we keep returning to them: their sturdy wooden construction, timeless charm, and, of course, the many educational and developmental benefits they have to offer. These classic toys can help your kiddo develop many vital skills — and we’re going full steam ahead outlining 5 of them here.

1. Fine Motor Skills

With tons of little pieces to play with and manipulate, wooden train sets are a great way to develop your little one’s fine motor skills. Our Wild Ridge Train Set and Deluxe Wooden Train Set come with tiny hands-friendly tracks that are easy to grasp and connect. As your child lines them up and joins them together, they’ll be learning to control the little muscles in their hands! Once their railway is built, they can connect our Wooden Locomotives & Freight Cars and Wooden Passenger Trains together by magnet, and tug them along the tracks for even more fine motor skill practice.

2. Language Skills

“This powerful train is travelling through beautiful mountains and over a rushing river!” Storytelling and train sets go hand-in-hand, offering an excellent opportunity for your child to build their vocabulary — just ask them to describe their train journey as they play! Plus, our train sets come with a ton of fun, colorful accessories, so your little one will have plenty to describe as they look out their imaginary train window! You can also ask your kiddo to describe how the pieces look using adjectives – are they big, small, curved, pointy? And for adverbs, encourage them to explain the train’s movement – is it moving quickly, slowly, loudly, or smoothly?

3. Problem-solving Skills

Uh-oh — looks like a fallen tree (your couch) is blocking your kid’s railroad! How will they get around it? As your child runs into obstacles putting together their wooden railway, they’ll have to flex their problem-solving muscles in order to come with solutions. Your child’s creative and critical thinking skills will come into play as they figure out which pieces they’ll need to build a functioning path. The tracks in our sets are double-sided to allow for endless configurations — if going in one direction doesn’t work, your child can flip ‘em over and try another!

4. Imagination

Train sets can get your lil’ conductor’s creative gears turning in tons of different ways. They can make their imaginary world come to life by adding accessories to their unique railroad. Why not take a pretend trip to the Swiss Alps with our Wild Ridge Train Set’s mountain top lid, or invent a quaint little town with the Deluxe Wooden Train Set’s adorable buildings? Once their scenic route is built, it’s time for some imaginative pretend play! They could be the train driver of an exhilarating expedition or explore their landscapes by foot with our sets’ wooden figurines.

5. Mathematical Skills

1,2,3,4, learning mathematical concepts with toy trains will come with giggles galore! With so many pieces to put together and take apart, train sets and trains provide tons of opportunity to practice counting during playtime. Connectable by magnet, our Wooden Locomotives & Freight Cars and Wooden Passenger Trains make for a fun-filled counting exercise. Call out a number and ask your kiddo to build a train with the same number of trains. Then, remove 1 or 2 cars, and ask how many remain. Engine-ious!