Egg Carton Challenge – Choo Choo Train and passengers

It’s time for the Tinkerlab Creative Challenge again – remember last time it was Paper Bags and we made our knights helmet well this time it’s Egg Cartons and when in the week J found the egg cartons I had been saving and started to push them around the kitchen and announced that he was a train (we have a busy railway behind our house – so trains form a big part of our lives) what we were going to make was decided.

What you need to make the Choo Choo Train and Passengers

Egg Carton (ours is a 6 egg carton but a bigger carton would make a longer train)
Sticky Tape
Paint
Cardboard Tubes
Sticky Tape
Yogurt Pots
Pink Paper
Pen
Cotton Wool
Cress (Mustard/grass) seeds

How to make the Choo Choo Train and Passengers

So that J could get on with this project as quickly as possible I set up everything at once (we are going through a very impatient phase at the moment and the way I have found around it is during lunch to set up the afternoon activity with everything done in advance so there is no waiting for Mummy to get the next bit done). On the table I set up the egg box which I had cut in half, a pen, the paints (primary colours and white), selection of different brushes, cardboard tubes cut for the funnels, paper cut to size to make the passenger faces and sticky tape.

J quickly drew faces on the pink paper – he was insistent on 2 eyes a nose and a smile – interestingly he drew each of them upside down with the eyes at the bottom and then nose and mouth at the top but I must say I’m quite proud of them as his first faces for a project. He then helped me to stick them around some yogurt pots and put in cotton wool and sprinkle some seeds over the top to grow the hair (note to everyone – if you do this do not leave these growing anywhere your toddler can get them as you will see from our pictures our passengers are all bald as he got hold of them when they had hair and pulled it all out as soon as it appeared). J then got to his favourite part painting the tubes and boxes.

We use poster paints (Tempura paints) and the thickness of them is great to cover the boxes and hide the label which I had forgotten to remove. Once they were decorated inside and out we put them aside to dry.

When dry, J and I used sticky tape to attach the funnels to the train and the added some tubes for the wheels. He then stuck the new passengers into the train and we put it on display on the window sill so the trains coming past could see our model.