Now that you have a train, you need a train table. This one from Melissa and Doug is perfect.

OK – you don’t need one, but here’s why I recommend having one. First, your child will use his or her train set all over the floor, building tracks that extend in length down the hall and out the door. This is good.

You do NOT want to shape your tracks into some elegant pattern that stays nicely in place because you’ve nailed it to the train table. Nailed down tracks belong at bookstores, toy stores and other retail establishments that do not want children running off with their trains. In your house, you want to encourage imagination and allow your child to make whatever fantasy route that he or she desires.

But, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have somewhere to stash your train and train materials. It’s nice to have a small place to make small set-ups. It’s nice to have a train table because…it does great double duty as a craft table!

Note those high sides? Great for keeping glitter and open bottles of glue off your floor. See that low profile? It’s just the right height for kids big and small to gather around on their knees.

I told you, you needed a train table. You’ll keep it long after your child has outgrown the actual trains.

Despite popular belief, wooden railroads are not just for 3-year-olds. A wooden railroad can be a popular plaything for your children for years and a great accessory for your Christmas Tree as well.

We’ve had our wooden railroad for a number of years now. We pieced it together by buying several sets over the years as they went on sale or as we found pieces we needed at a reasonable price. Though it saw a lot of action when he was a preschooler, we keep it around and he plays with it from time to time now that he is in elementary school. What I like best though is that Christmas, we drag it out and set up all the pieces around our Christmas tree…a nice alternative to the classic electric train.

This Yukon Express 100-Piece Wooden railroad is a great price for a wooden railroad set. It includes all of the basic pieces you need to get started and some fun pieces that are often difficult or expensive to find, like a trestle bridge. There are also just the right number of pieces for pretend play, including people, fences animals and even telephone poles.  Since  the pieces are compatible with most wooden railroad manufacturers’ offerings, you can mix and match as presents and opportunities roll in.

OK so your 3-year-old looks like he or she might be ready for games. Well, maybe it’s that you’d like the little one to start playing games. You dig through all of the classic card games you loved as a child. You drag out the board games. The game never gets started, but boy is it fun to scatter all of those pieces, cards, dice all over the room!

Sorry, your preschooler isn’t ready for what you or I might call a game. But, he or she is ready to learn one of the key steps in successful game playing – taking turns. The Crocodile Dentist might just be the best place to start.

This easy and fun game comes with just one piece, an open-mouthed plastic crocodile. Players take turns pressing the row of tiny teeth, one of which will release the spring that snaps the crocodile’s mouth shut, usually to a chorus of raucous laughter and tiny giggles.

We’ve had this game for a few years now, and happily, it is still in one piece and still works. I LIKE a sturdy toy! The spring action is not very strong so a hand or finger of any size is safe in this crocodile’s mouth. And the design is such that it would be quite tough to insert any other body part, except perhaps a foot.

If your child has an engineering bend, he will be happy to pay this game by himself for hours to try to figure out which tooth will set off the spring each time too!

I have to recommend this game because we just played several rounds this morning. Mancala, is an ancient game or games from Africa. Played in a variety of different countries, it looks simple, but it isn’t.

Originally played with pebbles or shells in several different ways in several different countries, it is a game along the lines of checkers that is fun for players of all ages. I always think of the older gentlemen I always see playing checkers on outside tables in the park. Now transport that idea to Africa and you get the idea.

Quick to learn, children from about age 4 or 5 can grasp it and start playing. The longer you play, though the more you realize that there are layers of strategy involved. Though we’ve had this game for several months it finally occurred to me this morning how to beat my six-year-old…which, of course was not one of my smarter ideas.

This is also a game that children can play together without adult involvement (except to break up the fights). Since it is so easy to learn, newcomers can quickly pick it up and even pros can have fun and occasionally get beaten by the new player.

If you’re looking for good old fashioned toys this holiday, this is one you might remember. I used to love this game as a child! Benefit of fancy electronics and lights and sounds this one operates with a spring, not exactly high tech, but strong and fun to play.

The object of Squeezed Out is to carefully remove the various colored disks from the wooden box in such a way that the spring doesn’t release and pop all of the disks out, and incidentally all over the floor. This is, of course a good game to play where you have a lot of space and smaller children who you can send scrambling after the pieces that end up under the table.

Around for decades, this game is particularly good for those times when you have players of multiple ages. Grandparents may remember this game from their youth and even bored teenagers can enjoy a simple game from time to time.

Yes, there is some strategy involved, but even the youngest players can mange to remove the colored discs and with a little help can remove the right ones. On the other hand, they might want to make the spring release…just for fun.