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Creative Teaching Ideas for

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

by E. Nesbit (1906)


ON THIS PAGE: LitWits hands-on activity ideas and instructions, teaching topics, learning links, and more. Scroll on!

Printables for purchaseOR video workshop details

About the story

When their father is arrested based on false accusations, three children and their mother must move from their London mansion to a country cottage near a train station. There the children have adventures and encounters that earn them friends from all walks of life, teach them ethics and etiquette, and help them prove their father’s innocence. This delightful classic is a heartwarming model of kindness, resourcefulness, and what it means to look out for each other.

Read reviews / buy the book here. (We make a small commission on anything you buy through our Amazon affiliate links.)

About the author

Teaching Options

This long webpage shares all the fun we had in our live workshops on The Railway Children. We hope it inspires you! If you'd like to teach this book yourself, you might want to buy the printables you'll see throughout.

On the other hand, if you'd like US to teach your kids, check out our video workshop! 

Hands-on Fun

Making a plan

There are many ideas in this Hands-on Fun section—don't feel you have to do them all! Go with whatever works best for you and your kids. If you want to focus on a particular teaching point, our Takeaway Topics section can help you narrow down the activity options. And you can enhance discussions during any activity with audiovisual aids from Learning Links or story objects from Prop Ideas.

In our workshops, we do all the activities on this page, in order of the story's narrative arc. You might find our narrative arc worksheet helpful for sequencing your activities, teaching the important concept of the arc, and helping kids learn how E. Nesbit put The Railway Children  together.
Narrative arc worksheet & other printables

Getting Help

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

The siblings in this story give lots of help to others — and sometimes they get it, too. Having our kids paint the SOS message to “the old gentleman” got them right into the spirit of the story, and provided authentic ambiance during the rest of the experience. 

INSPIRATION

. . .the other two were very busy with scissors and a white sheet, and a paint brush, and the pot of Brunswick black that Mrs. Viney used for grates and fenders. They did not manage to do what they wished, exactly, with the first sheet, so they took another out of the linen cupboard. It did not occur to them that they were spoiling good sheets which cost good money.  Ch. 3

And later in the same chapter:

And what he was pointing at was a large white sheet nailed against the fence. On the sheet there were thick black letters more than a foot long.

Some of them had run a little, because of Phyllis having put the Brunswick black on too eagerly, but the words were quite easy to read.

And this what the old gentleman and several other people in the train read in the large black letters on the white sheet:

LOOK OUT AT THE STATION.
DIRECTIONS & SUPPLIES

We had the kids take turns, each writing a letter with black paint on an old sheet.

In a later workshop, we used black fabric paint markers on white linen handkerchiefs. Handkerchiefs are waved or put to other good use at all the most important points in this story, so using them for this activity makes excellent use of a key symbol.  (Search for "handkerchief" here.) They also allow each child to take home their own reminder to "look out" for chances to help someone.  

PRINTABLES SET
Show-don't-tell writing skills from E. Nesbit, via LitWits Workshops

Writing to Show, British Style

A LitWits activity

One of E. Nesbit's greatest strengths is her ability to convey a character's emotion without coming out and telling us "She was surprised" or "It looked mad."  This skill of showing, not telling, is an essential writing skill, and not just for writing fiction.  To give readers descriptions of action and other key details allows readers the space to visualize and interpret imaginatively.  

This is such an important ability for kids—for ALL of us—to develop!  Thank you E. Nesbit for helping us see and figure things out for ourselves!

Our creative writing worksheet helps kids play with this idea, from analyzing to writing their own "show don't tell" description. We encouraged them to include the British words they learned on our vocabulary worksheet, and to share their (often hilarious) writing aloud.
Creative writing, vocabulary, and other printables

Flag Heroics

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

You can’t experience The Railway Children without making a red flannel petticoat flag, and saving a train full of passengers! This activity is pure fun — but it also gets the kids acting out the important themes of resourcefulness, quick thinking under pressure, doing the right thing, and taking care of each other (and strangers too).

Even if the approaching train is imaginary, there’s no way to do all that and not feel GREAT!
INSPIRATION

She took the red flannel petticoat from him and tore it off an inch from the band. Then she tore the other in the same way.

“There!” said Peter, tearing in his turn. He divided each petticoat into three pieces. “Now, we’ve got six flags.” He looked at the watch again. “And we’ve got seven minutes. We must have flagstaffs.”

The knives given to boys are, for some odd reason, seldom of the kind of steel that keeps sharp. The young saplings had to be broken off. Two came up by the roots. The leaves were stripped from them.

“We must cut holes in the flags, and run the sticks through the holes,” said Peter. And the holes were cut. The knife was sharp enough to cut flannel with. Two of the flags were set up in heaps of loose stones between the sleepers of the down line. Then Phyllis and Roberta took each a flag, and stood ready to wave it as soon as the train came in sight.  Ch. 6


SUPPLIES
  • sticks 3-5′ long (we used fallen twigs dropped by a windstorm)
  • red flannel
  • scissors (not steel knives!)

DIRECTIONS

Have the kids use their SCISSORS to make two holes in the torn or cut flannel (just fold the edge and snip), then poke the twig through to make a flag.

Once they're equipped to save a train, stop them in their tracks (yes) with a raised hand and a look of alarm. Tell them you’ve just received word (on your cell phone, perhaps) that a runaway train is headed toward your building, and only some serious waving will save the day!  They'd better keep an eye out—HERE IT COMES!

(Make sure, of course, that everyone has plenty of clearance so they don't put  an eye out!)



Have your finger poised on the "pause" button to stop the train JUST IN TIME, at 25 seconds.
PRINTABLES SET
Playing Advertisements charades from THE RAILWAY CHILDREN E Nesbit LitWits Workshops

Advertisements

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

When the siblings were bored at the train station, they got creative by playing “Advertisements,” a form of charades. We played the game ourselves, acting out the authenticic ads on the wall of our "train station"—they're included in our printables set.

This activity gets kids up, prompts their imaginations, exposes them to a little advertising history, and shows them that screen-free entertainment is always at hand.
INSPIRATION

They went into the desert spot labelled General Waiting Room, and the time passed pleasantly enough in a game of advertisements. You know the game, of course? It is something like dumb Crambo. The players take it in turns to go out, and then come back and look as like some advertisement as they can, and the others have to guess what advertisement it is meant to be. Bobbie came in and sat down under Mother’s umbrella and made a sharp face, and everyone knew she was the fox who sits under the umbrella in the advertisement. Phyllis tried to make a Magic Carpet of Mother’s waterproof, but it would not stand out stiff and raft-like as a Magic Carpet should, and nobody could guess it. Everyone thought Peter was carrying things a little too far when he blacked his face all over with coal-dust and struck a spidery attitude and said he was the blot that advertises somebody’s Blue Black Writing Fluid.

It was Phyllis’s turn again, and she was trying to look like the Sphinx that advertises What’s-his-name’s Personally Conducted Tours up the Nile when the sharp ting of the signal announced the up train.  Ch. 5
Old ads and other printables

BookBites

Iced Biscuits

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.” We choose a food right out of the book, and it has to meet at least one criterion:

  • it’s important to a plot point
  • it has thematic significance
  • it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
For our tasting experience of this story, we chose something the children created as an act of kindness:  the decorated half-penny buns for Perks’ birthday. To take the “do what they did” experience further, we made paper cones and applied the icing just as the narrator instructed.

To bring in the earlier "funny and delightful supper" the family had on arrival at Three Chimneys, we used Marie biscuits instead of buns. (If you're up for making authentic British buns, here's a recipe.)
INSPIRATION

The morning of the fifteenth was spent very happily in getting the buns and watching Mother make A. P. on them with pink sugar. You know how it’s done, of course? You beat up whites of eggs and mix powdered sugar with them, and put in a few drops of cochineal. And then you make a cone of clean, white paper with a little hole at the pointed end, and put the pink egg-sugar in at the big end. It runs slowly out at the pointed end, and you write the letters with it just as though it were a great fat pen full of pink sugar-ink.  Ch. 9

The buns looked beautiful with A. P. on every one . . .   Ch. 9

Everyone was very, very tired, but everyone cheered up at the sight of the funny and delightful supper. There were biscuits, the Marie and the plain kind, sardines, preserved ginger, cooking raisins, and candied peel and marmalade. 
—Ch. 2

SUPPLIES

  • We used pre-made pink frosting, which did not contain cochineal—ew!—and reserved the leftovers (minus licked amounts) for the "Petaling Home" activity
  • piece of white cardstock
  • tape
  • spoon for scooping frosting into cone
While the kids piped and nibbled we talked about Perks, and why his initial reaction to the gifts was so negative. It was a good chance to talk about the possible "reasons behind the reasons" for someone's harshness in our real lives, too.
PRINTABLES SET

Petaling Home

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

This activity makes double use of the BookBites frosting, and lets kids join in the fun of preparing Bobbie’s birthday surprise. While having fun, they're also acting out the ideas of “resourcefulness” and “taking care of each other.”

INSPIRATION

The cake had a wreath of white lilac round it, and in the middle was something that looked like a pattern all done with single blooms of lilac or wallflower or laburnum.

“It’s a map—a map of the railway!” cried Peter. “Look—those lilac lines are the metals—and there’s the station done in brown wallflowers. The laburnum is the train, and there are the signal-boxes, and the road up to here—and those fat red daisies are us three waving to the old gentleman—that’s him, the pansy in the laburnum train.”

“And there’s ‘Three Chimneys’ done in the purple primroses,” said Phyllis. “And that little tiny rose-bud is Mother looking out for us when we’re late for tea. Peter invented it all, and we got all the flowers from the station. We thought you’d like it better.” Ch. 4

DIRECTIONS
It's not shown in the project model, but first we had the kids frost the canvas (edge-to-edge, top only) with the pink frosting left over from BookBites. Then, rather than recreate the elaborate caketop scene of the railway, we asked them to represent their own special place (most chose “home”) in flowers. 

SUPPLIES
ALL PRINTABLES

Peter's Pocket Note-book

A LitWits activity from the Falling Action

This project recreates a notebook from the story, topped with souvenirs of acts of kindness from the story. It’s as if it were lying on Mother’s desk at the end of the story, and the siblings had emptied their pockets onto it—especially since they're so often reaching into their pockets! (Search for "pocket" here and you'll see!)  It’s a fun but thoughtful way for the kids to think about the characters’ acts of kindness, and the real (intangible) rewards of being kind.

INSPIRATION

“Yes,” said the Porter, “I knowed a young gent as used to take down the numbers of every single [train] he seed; in a green note-book with silver corners it was, owing to his father being very well-to-do in the wholesale stationery.” . . .  That night at tea [Peter] asked Mother if she had a green leather note-book with silver corners. She had not; but when she heard what he wanted it for she gave him a little black one. ~Ch. 3
SUPPLIES


DIRECTIONS

First, have the kids attach the silver corners to the two open corners of the notebook. Have them glue the "loving-kindness" quote somewhere in the center.

Then hold up each keepsake and ask which act of kindness it represents before the kids attach the object with glue:

  • International stamps:  They showed him an Italian stamp, and pointed from him to it and back again, and made signs of question with their eyebrows. He shook his head. Then they showed him a Norwegian stamp—the common blue kind it was—and again he signed No. Then they showed him a Spanish one, and at that he took the envelope from Peter’s hand and searched among the stamps with a hand that trembled. The hand that he reached out at last, with a gesture as of one answering a question, contained a RUSSIAN stamp. Ch. 5
  • Pocket watches: “And then [the old gentleman] called the children one by one, by their names, and gave each of them a beautiful gold watch and chain.”  Ch. 7
  • Red ribbon bows: “So then I said,” Phyllis interrupted, “we’d always each wear a red ribbon when we went fishing by the canal, so they’d know it was US, and we were the real, right sort, and be nice to us!” Ch. 8
  • Singed feathers: And now Peter rubbed the hands of the red-jerseyed one. Bobbie burned the feathers of the shuttlecock one by one under his nose.”  Ch. 11
Stamps, quote, & other printables

Printables previews

The worksheets and printables used for our activities are sold as a complete set.


Common Core State Standards Alignment for the comprehensive use of our teaching ideas and materials is also included for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6. 
SEE DETAILSOR get our Video Workshop instead!

(If you buy our video workshop, all the printables needed are included.)

The LitWits Kit

Pack up for the field trip!

A LitWits Kit is a bag or box of supplies and printables you pack up and give to each child right before you begin your experience of the story.  You might be doing one-off projects as you read through the book together, or you might do everything in this guide from top to bottom after the book has been read. However you explore this book in LitWitty ways, kids love the anticipation of opening their kit.

If you'd like to build LitWits Kits for your kids, you could easily arrange the items in a bag, basket, or story-relevant container.  Honestly, it's just as much fun to create a kit as it is to open one!

To make it all the more fun, our printables for many books include special "story packaging" for certain activity supplies, including BookBites. Click the button below for a specific list of contents for this book. 
PRINTABLES SET

Takeaway Topics

Why we chose this book for a "field trip"
We love this book mostly for its focus on looking out for each other—not just for family and friends, but for community and even strangers. It's also a wonderful lost-and-found/happy-ending story, set in the beautiful English countryside, and has a mystery in it, and even interesting Russian history, and oh yeah, TRAINS!  We love trains and even have an old antique set of our own.  So The Railway Children  was an easy choice for one of our experiential workshops. And it's packed with great takeaway topics, which we're sharing below.

In our workshops, we did our best to make these teaching points tangible, meaningful, and memorable in the kids' hands. It's amazing how much kids can learn while they're "just" having fun!

Happy teaching,
Becky and Jenny

Takeaway 1

Taking Care of Each Other

This story is all about looking out for each other — not just our own family, but our fellow human beings. The train may seem the star of this story — it shares the title with the children, after all. It brings them a friend, delivers a suffering stranger, gives them the chance to be heroes, and gets them a “brother” – whose grandfather is their friend and the man who saves their father. 

But it's not really the train that does all that, of course. It's the children themselves make so much happen, and inspire readers to see just how much agency THEY TOO have.

Here are some things we talked about with the kids:

What does the “old gentleman” do in response to the message the children sent for help? Did you notice how Mrs. Ransome, after getting roses on her birthday, “pays it forward” with the baby carriage? Kindness creates a chain reaction. Does kindness ever backfire? Has someone ever been mad at you for doing something you thought was nice? We must be careful not to give people more than they really want  — and that we’re not giving just to feel good about ourselves.  That’s the difference between real kindness and charity. As Perks says, “it’s not so much what you does as what you means.”

Hands-on connections in this guide:  “Peter's Pocket Note-book” project,  “Getting Help” project/activity, “Flag Heroics” project/activity, “Petaling Home” project, "Iced Biscuits" snack/activity, props that symbolize acts of assistance or their reward (handkerchief, railroad watch, flag, banner, roses)

Takeaway 2

Resourcefulness

Define resourcefulness as “making do with what you have,” and ask the kids to give examples from the story. The family is very poor, but the mother’s writing helps them survive — something she can do at home with a pencil, paper, and what she has between her ears. How do the children show resourcefulness when their mother gets sick and needs food? What motivates them to ruin a sheet and ask a total stranger for help?

Talk about the idiom “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The children invent flags from petticoats, banners from sheets, and birthday desserts from buns. What else? Ask the kids what they would do if they were alone in a train tunnel with an injured child (without a cell phone).

Explain that we have inner (attitudinal) resources, too — as Bobbie discovers when she courageously waves down the train. Point out that when you care enough, you can even do something you didn’t think was possible.

Hands-on connections in this guide:  “Advertisements” activity, “Getting Help” project, “Petaling Home” project, “Flag Heroics” project/activity, props that convey “making do” – flag, banner

Takeaway 3

Doing the Right Thing

Throughout this story, the siblings make choices that all stem from good intentions. Explain to the kids that good intentions are a fabulous starting point, but that we must pause and apply good judgment, too.  

For instance, when the family was cold, and too poor to buy coal — was it all right for Peter to steal it? How does he excuse it? If it’s excusable, why does his conscience bother him when he runs into the stationmaster again?  How does he fix it? Did the children do anything you thought they shouldn’t have? (Notice that Bobbie didn’t tell her mom about her escapade on the train!)

Usually, though, the siblings do what they know is right. Ask the kids why Bobbie offers to pay the engineer for her ticket, when she never meant to be a passenger on that train.  Why are Peter and Phyllis so horrified when the signal man tries to pay them to keep quiet about him sleeping on the job?

Other characters do (or have done) what they think is right, too — the doctor, for instance. Who are some others?  To point out how complicated “rightness” can be, remind the kids that the Russian was a deserter from his country’s military. Is it ever okay to abandon one’s country?  Why or why not? (You may want to tell the kids about the 1905 massacre in St. Petersburg, which caused the Russian people to lose faith in their czar.)

Hands-on connections in this guide:  “Flag Heroics” project/activity, “Peter's Pocket Note-book” project, “Getting Help” project/activity, props that represent choices – coal, shilling, doctor bag, pocket watch
The Railway Children is chock-full of wonderful topics to explore, from the history of the railroads to the geography of Yorkshire to the origins of British games. Scroll down to see our curated Learning Links for more tangential teaching opportunities, and to see how we brought this book and its ideas to life. 
PRINTABLES SET

Learning Links

Explore these links to supplement your reading experience, research points of interest, and prompt tangential learning opportunities.


About the Book & Author

The LitWits author chat:

Story Supplements

1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia (History.com) – the event that likely inspired E. Nesbit to include the Russian refugee in her story
Underground Russia by Stepniak, published in London in 1882; possibly E. Nesbit’s model for the Russian political prisoner’s “beautiful book”
The source of red food coloring (video)
"Cochineal" How Mexico Made the World See Red" - Harvard
See our Pinterest board for more


Beyond the Book

PRINTABLES SET

Prop Ideas

When choosing props for our live workshops, we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible. Both kinds of props generate those wide-eyed, “aha!” moments.You could easily have your kids contribute items to a table over time, as the book is being read. 

Sometimes we create a printable prop; click the button to see what we've made for this book.
PRINTABLES SET

Shilling & handkerchief

"I've got the shilling for the mutton." "We can do without the beastly mutton," said Peter . . . And Mrs. Viney was sent to the village to get as much brandy and soda-water and beef tea as she could buy for a shilling." A shilling represented sacrifice and care.

". . .all three children stood on the railing and waved their pocket-handkerchiefs. . " A handkerchief (also used in our Getting Help activity) not only helped the siblings meet the old gent but often served as assistance (in the fire; in the tunnel; the rake accident; the weeping Russian; more).

Coal & railroad watch

"Here's the first coal from the St. Peter's Mine. We'll take it home in the chariot." Charcoal from the hardware store symbolized Peter's good intentions but lack of judgment.

And then he . . . gave each of them a beautiful gold watch and chain. The railway watch is a tangible symbol of the rewards of kindness.

Roses

They cut a big bunch of roses and put it in a basket with the needle-book . . Roses feature in many scenes of kindness. We used two small pots to represent Mrs. Perks's tea-table when "the roses were put in two glass jam jars" for the birthday party.

Carpenter's bag & flannel

There was Peter firmly held by the jacket with an old carpenter's bag full of coal in his trembling clutch.  Our flea-market find represents Peter's misguided attempt to help,and the doctor's assistance.

“There!” said Peter, tearing in his turn. He divided each petticoat into three pieces. “Now, we’ve got six flags.” He looked at the watch again. “And we’ve got seven minutes. We must have flagstaffs.” A piece of red fabric on a twig is a symbol of the story's climax and of an act of salvation. 

Warning sign

". . .Only please you mustn't walk on the line . . . Then Phyllis said 'Mother didn't YOU ever walk on the railway lines when you were little?"  Available here.

"Look out" sign

Once the kids had painted the "look out" sign on a sheet, we pinned it on a wire as a backdrop.

Great Quotes

Sometimes, in moments of great need, we can do wonderful things – things that in ordinary life we could hardly even dream of doing.   Ch. 5


     Presently she said, “Dears, when you say your prayers, I think you might ask God to show His pity upon all prisoners and captives.”
     “To show His pity,” Bobbie repeated slowly, “upon all prisoners and captives. Is that right, Mother?"
     “Yes,” said Mother, “upon all prisoners and captives. All prisoners and captives.”    Ch. 5

“Yes,” said Perks reflectively, “it’s not so much what you does as what you means; that’s what I say.”   Ch. 9

Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it’s not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you.  Ch. 7

“I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them to see you don’t want to be un-friends.”  Ch. 8

There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.  Ch. 8

“Stick to it,” said Peter; “everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.”  Ch. 12

“I knew something wonderful was going to happen,” said Bobbie, as they went up the road, “but I didn’t think it was going to be this.”  Ch. 14
ALL PRINTABLES

Welcome!

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We're also eager to keep doing it! :)  So if you found this guide-page inspiring and useful,* please share it with your social world. And if you buy our printables for this book, thank you. We appreciate you helping us keep the lights on at LitWits! 

Happy teaching,
Becky and Jenny
Sisters, best friends, and partners
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*We hope we've inspired you!  If you're feeling a little overwhelmed (we hear that sometimes), remember, you're LitWitting whether you do a lot or a little. You can't go wrong!  The learning is happening, trust us. Just take the pressure off and do what works for your kids, time, and budget.  It's all about inspiring kids to read for fun, so they want to read more—because kids who read more great books learn more great things.

On the other hand, if you'd like US to teach this book to your kids, check out our video workshop!

Now get ready for a bunch of wide-eyed kids having “aha!” moments . . . and you, grinning ear to ear because your kids are happily engaged with a great book.

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LitWits teaching ideas and materials for The Railway Children  by E. Nesbit
Copyright 2014 by LitWits Workshops, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.
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