Toy trains

Why, though?

Bori called Teacher Yepark over to the new toy.

“Were you playing trains?”

The playing had stopped, because the rail pieces would not go together.

“It won't work.”

Teacher Yepark clicked two of them into each other.

“The track has to join up like this, or the train can't get along it.”

Bori did the next one, and the one after that, and the track went where Bori wanted it to go.

Then the train got switched on first and carried over in the air, still going.

“Put it on the track, and then switch it on.”

“Why, though?”

Teacher Yepark said why.

“Why, though?”

Does a train even stop at our station?

They had been at the trains the day before, so the wooden blocks came out and the track went down, long, with everybody working on it.

Then Teacher Yubok put pictures of real trains up.

“This one's the KTX. It's really fast!”

“I rode it going to my grandma's. My dad said it's faster than a car.”

Big trains, far away — and then a nearer one.

“Should we build a station, then?”

“There's a station right here where we live. Does a train even stop there?”

“Yeah, I've ridden it.”

The side of a shelf unit became that station. Tickets needed making, so paper and pens and tape came out.

“One ticket, please.”

“What time does it leave?”

“Where's this train going?” said Teacher Yubok. “Who's on board?”

Later the big foam bricks came out, and they built a train from those as well, pushing pieces together until it was long enough to hold up against the other one.

How does it get down?

The Lego track had been getting longer along the tabletop all morning, and it had reached the edge.

Bori pointed underneath the table and looked up.

“How does it get down?”

“What could we do about that?” said Teacher Yepark.

Blocks went in first — a stack of them at the edge, meant to be a bridge. The train did not get down.

Then a book, propped. The train did not get down that way either.

Bori looked up again with a face on.

“How about this?”

Teacher Yepark took two legs off the table, and the tabletop tipped, and the whole thing became a slope from up there to down here.

The train came down it. Then it went back up, and came down again.

The others fetched cars and did the same.

And later, when the tipped table had been pushed aside for snack time, somebody climbed onto the high end of it and slid down.

Slowly round the bendy bit

Chaewon laid the track out on the floor, then coupled the trains up into one long one, took hold of the front one and pulled.

Everything behind it came too. That was worth watching, and it brought the others over with trains of their own.

They all went at different speeds. The fast ones caught up with the slow ones and stuck to their backs.

“Don't! That's mine!”

So the fast ones came unstuck, and then went slower, so as not to catch up again.

The bendy part of the track was where the trains came off. The first time, it got stood back up and pushed on at the same speed as before. The second time, the same. The third time, the same.

After that, the bendy part got taken slowly.

The other thing was that the track did not join up at the end, so at the end of the line everybody picked their train up and carried it back to the start.

“What if the track went round in a circle?” said Teacher Yubok.

That turned out to be about which way round each piece goes, and it took a while, and it took some help — but once the line had no end on it they stayed on it.

Then find a smaller animal

The waffle blocks were the mini ones, and Bori made a train out of them and went to load it.

The pig did not fit. Neither did the cow.

Bori stood there holding the cow.

“There might be other animals about. Shall we go and see?” said Teacher Yepark.

The looking took a while, and what turned up was the little animals — the ones off the green glove, small enough to sit inside a mini waffle block.

Those went in.

And then the train got pushed all the way round the room with them still on board.

We could set a time and swap

The track was long by then, and the trains were lined up along it. The red one and the blue one were the ones everybody wanted.

Two of them grabbed for the same train.

“I saw it first!”

“I was playing with it!”

They pulled, and the track shook, and the train nearly went off the edge of it.

Teacher Yubok came over, said something quiet about keeping it safe, and then asked the question.

“Is there a way you could play with it together?”

“We could take turns.”

“How about I have this train and you have that one?”

“We could set a time and swap.” That one pointed at a wrist.

They ended up doing both. On one side of the track everybody ran a long train together; on the other, the popular ones went round in turns.

After that the station needed a platform and a ticket window, and the line needed a tunnel, and then a bridge.

What kept it going The train did not get taken away, and no turn order got handed down. One question went in, and three answers came back out — and the two who had been pulling were the ones who thought of them.

Nobody could get their feet right

The foam rods got bent round into circles, and the circles got joined up, and that was the train.

One child inside each circle, one behind another, walking.

Except that one would go, and another would stop, and down they went.

So the circles came apart, and after that everybody had one of their own, held up round their middle, going wherever they were going.

“Chuff chuff,” said Teacher Yepark, to the one going past.

One each, then

They remembered the hoops from last time, and every one of them wanted to be at the front.

“Shall I give you one each?” said Teacher Yepark.

One each, then. A hoop apiece, round the middle, and off around the room.

It went quiet after that. A hoop on your own is a hoop.

“Do it again, please.”

Two of them had come back to ask. Teacher Yepark joined their hoops back together, and then the next one wanted joining on, and then the rest.

And once they were all in one line again they had to work out the walking — who goes, how fast, who waits.

It's too tight in here

Photographs of the view out of a train window went up, and they talked about the trains they had been on.

“I've been on a train.”

“The window outside is really big.”

“It stops to pick people up.”

Then the riding started. One of them held a wooden toy across their lap.

“This is the seatbelt.”

But everybody was in the same space, and elbows kept landing on each other.

“It's too tight in here.”

“There should be seats.”

Teacher Yubok had a way of doing seats without any chairs: masking tape on the floor, a square each.

“That would be good.”

Once the squares were down, everybody had one to be in, and the bumping stopped.

By then the food had arrived. Lunchboxes got packed and carried down the train and handed over.

“This is a lunchbox.”

“I'll bring it over to you.”

What kept it going The complaint was that it was too tight, and the answer was not fewer passengers. It was masking tape — a square of floor each — and after that the elbows stopped landing.

Then let's build a robot train

One of them had built a boat out of blocks and was holding it up. Another held theirs up next to it.

“I built a train.”

“This is the KTX, it's super fast. There's the ITX too, but it's slower than the KTX.”

“Have you been on a train?”

“I went on one with my mom.”

“It's really fast.”

“We've got loads of trains at my house. I'll invite you over sometime.”

Then came the announcements, spoken into another toy, and the departure sound made with a mouth.

And then somebody arrived with a robot.

“This robot can ride the train.”

“This is for people. Robots can't ride.”

That was the end of the robot, except that the one next to them had somewhere else for it to go.

“Then let's build a robot train.”

So there was a robot train after that, and track for it to run on.

The tape that's sticky on both sides

“Let's go on the train!”

Yesterday's train was made of thin boxes, and it came apart while they were getting on it.

“The boxes keep falling off.”

“That must be annoying, playing on a train that keeps coming apart,” said Teacher Yubok. “What would stop them falling?”

“Stick two boxes together.”

More boxes came out, and they got the tape themselves.

“Engineering works! No trips today!”

Then somebody picked the train up, and it came apart again.

“You know the tape that's sticky on both sides?”

“Double-sided tape, do you mean?”

That was it. They peeled it off themselves and pressed the boxes onto each other and tested it by lifting.

“Right — stick it on the train now.”

And they said where it went.

Then it went into the sea

The train had been to see family the week before. This week it was going to the seaside.

“The seaside is far, so the track has to be longer.”

“You have to join it up here or you can't get all the way there.”

They turned pieces round to see which way they went and fetched more when they ran out, and the line got longer along the floor.

Then the far end of it arrived at the sea they had made, and went in.

“The train's gone into the sea!”

“It's an underwater train!”

“It can go along under the water!”

“What do you think it can see down there?” said Teacher Yubok.

We ate tangerines the whole way

There was a train printed on paper, and they filled it in with foam pieces, wetting each one and pressing it down. Two of them sat side by side and joined their trains up into one.

“Chuff chuff, train coming through!”

“Our train is going to Busan!”

And once the paper train had somewhere to be going, the real ones came back.

“Yes! I went with my grandma and we ate tangerines the whole way.”

“I saw the sea from the train!”

Has it gone already?

A real train runs past the town, so they went to see it. Litter pickers on the way, because of what they had said about looking after the earth.

“When's it coming?”

“Will it be long, like a train?”

They waited at the fence, watching the line.

Then it came, and it went.

“Has it gone already?”

“It's too fast.”

On the way back they carried on picking litter up.

“I want to do more of these.”