My son Jeffrey found out about Thomas the Tank Engine in June 2010 when he was looking in a toy sale catalogue. As any young child he spent hours looking at the catalogue. Of all the toys that were in the catalogue he noticed Thomas the Tank engine. It was an instant love at first sight. He was 2 years old at that time. Since he has 2 older sisters, there were not trains in the house. It was very interesting to see how boys are naturally drawn to cars and trains.
He would spent time looking at the catalogue and when I showed him the toys in the stores, he was amazed. And this was a start of a new collection. I am sure that my story is quite similar to yours. It all starts with one.
So here is a question to ponder on:
Why are some children fascinated by Thomas the Tank engine?
Thomas the Tank Engine Photo by Ben Small (UK)
I think what draws children towards Thomas the Tank engine are the simplicity of the facial features and the different emotions displayed by the characters. Quickly my son was able to name me Thomas, Gordon, James, Henry, Edward, Annie, Clarabelle, Harold and Toby. It was amazing to see him learn. He was passionate about it and thus is able to learn easily the features and place names on the characters.
Each time that Jeffrey looks at a book while I am reading a story, he would look at the pictures and interpret the facial expression. He would comment on whether “Thomas is happy”, “Toby is scared”, “Percy is worried”, “Gordon is angry”, “Rosie is unsure”. This is good training for him to look at a facial expression and put a word on the expression and confirmed by the story or by me. This is teaching him at a very young age the first step to becoming emotionally intelligent.
It always amazes me to listen to see little children recognising the different characters. They are able to discriminate between colours and small details. Distinguishing between colours might be relatively easy for some children. It is easy to know that James is red, Percy is green, and Thomas is blue.
Then how to distinguish between Thomas, Gordon and Edward which are all blue? I sometimes play “Guess who?” games with him. I hide both trains in one hand each revealing only for example the face and I ask him to guess who is in which hand. This helps him to focus on the details and it gives him a sense of accomplishment that he can successfully recognise his trains.
He got good training with Annie and Clarabelle. They both look alike except for the facial expression and the names written on them. I always challenge him to tell me which one is Annie and which one in Clarabelle, whenever we are reading a book or playing with the toys. After a couple of tries, he was able to get it right. I think it is good training for him to pay attention to people’s faces and when he goes to school he will quickly put a name on faces.
That’s it for now. My next blog will be on the using Thomas the Tank Engine Big lift-the- flap books to improve children‘s memory and language.
