Large Thomas plastic track & train set (Thomas the Tank Engine Toys)

Member Name: Lillyjane

Product:	Thomas the Tank Engine Toys
Date:	16/08/09 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well played with and loved toy

Disadvantages: Difficult to stop playing with! some train carriage connectors have snapped.

Thomas the Tank Engine is very popular in our house with my 2 and 4 year old boys. The main toy we have is the large plastic train track with road and many trains. This is my 4 year olds absolute favourite toy. It is played with more than any other toy, and would be out every day if my son had his way.

This toy is durable, fun, bright and colourful. It can be used to make small tracks, or one large track with a road. You can follow the instructions to copy a track or you can make up your own design. There is a bridge that can be built too, which smaller children woud need help with and can get knocked down easily.

The train & truck connectors on some of our trains have snapped due to over playing and being dropped, which means the train can't now pull a truck or carriage. this is annoying but the train still works.

I will say that we do not have batteries in the trains as this causes too much conflict, because it is played with so much the batteries would not last, so we made the decision to not have batteries in the trains, this has resulted in my son playing better with it and not so many arguments about the batteries running out.

Overall I feel that Thomas the Tank Engine toys and stories are lovely. They promote good caring behaviour in stories and the ways the toys can be played with include, sharing, colours, numbers, spelling, fine & gross motor skills, memory skills (the names of the trains!!) building, problem solving & puzzles, taking care of things, collecting and imaginative play.

There are so many different toys available and for different ages, I think it is a lovely toy/range of toys/interest. Although, probably more boys than girls are interested in Thomas, there are girl trains to collect too!

It is quite an expensive toy, but it is definitely worth it simply due to the amount of hours it is played with.

Summary: A delightful range of toys and stories for children