Transportation for Preschoolers - Part 2

Transportation Week sure went by fast. If you do decide to opt for one yourself, do take the time to include a chat on road safety. Although I didn't take any pictures of that part, I did revise the rules of street crossing with Adrian and the importance of wearing a seat belt / sitting in a car seat in the car. And now, for the "fun part"...

Parking Lot Game

After seeing this activity on My Montessori Journey, I just had to "bring it home" in my own way. As such, I prepared my "parking lot" with a black construction paper sheet and looked at the transportation related items I had and chose a few with different beginning letters. Here's what I came up with:

"Airplane"

"Car"

"Train"

"Wheel"

"Boat"

"Screw"

"Helicopter"

I placed all the items in a basket for Adrian to sort appropriately in the right parking space according to their first letter sound. He had no trouble whatsover and loved the idea.

Tire Roll & Measuring in Car Unit

Tire rolling? Why not! For gross motor, tire tossing into a bin is great. For fine motor, tire rolling is! It takes quite a bit of dexterity to manipulate a car wheel into rolling.  For this activity, I asked Adrian to roll the car wheel from a marked spot on the floor (masking tape works great). Once it stopped rolling or fell to its side, he had to line up "matchbox/hot wheels" cars from the starting line to the stopped tire and count how many cars were lined up. The number was then recorded on a chalkboard. We did this 10 times to his great delight. I'm not sure which part he liked best actually; he seemed as excited by the rolling as he was by the lining up of the cars. When the 10 times were up, we looked at the chalkboard and discussed a bit about the furthest his wheel went (11 cars' length), the closest it stayed (1 car's length) and so on.

Car Tire Tracks Art

Here's a nice art activity we did on Adrian's birthday that was well liked. In fact, it was so liked I thought we'd repeat it this week. I purposely chose three cars with different types of tires and chose  colors displayed on signals. Adrian rolled the cars in the paint and made tracks. As usual, we used washable tempera paint.

Sink or Float?

Water activities are always a big hit in our home. I haven't brought out a "Sink or float" tub in a while and I thought that with the transportation theme, it would kind of fit nicely, especially if I took the time to select objects that would stay within the thematic. This activity kept Adrian's interest for a long time, even after he classified which floated and which sank. Part of it was due to me asking him if he could try to sink the boat for example. I also asked him if if could make the rubber wheel float and so on.

Close Up of the Sink or Float? Objects

Here is what we used for our Sink or Float? Transportation activity:

A plastic bath toy boat
A wooden train
A crepe airplane
A metal screw with washers, nut, wing
A rubber wheel
A plastic and metal "matchbox" car



Train Ticket Hole Punching

Sadly, this was a bit of a toughie. I thought it might be and was hesitant to put it out but Adrian saw me punching holes and seemed so interested that I thought we'd give it a try. Although it did make an indent he he tried to punch holes, it didn't punch through to his disappointment. If you would like to give this activity a try, I printed these train tickets by visiting The Spaghetti Westerner.

Going Down the Ramp - Velocity Experiment

I've been wanting to do this activity for a while and originally had planned on doing it during our Train/Thomas&Friends week. Unfortunately, I could not find a plank of wood suitable for a makeshift ramp and as such had to let go of the idea. While re-organized the storage room last week-end, I saw this unused bathroom vanity shelf and just knew what to do with it! :) It's not as long as I would have liked but it worked just fine. I elevated it with a Fisher-Price mountain so it'd have a nice angle and provided a "matchbox car". Also provided was a basket of different "fabrics" to test out our car and ramp. How fast and how far does the car go on the wood? How far and fast does it go when bubble wrap covers the ramp? Why is that? What happens if we switch to sandpaper? Well, you get the idea. Adrian sure did and LOVED it. He repeated the activity over and over again.  

Stuck in Tape

The tape material was the one we finished with as help was needed to roll it up and put it on the plank.  Needless to say, Adrian thought it was hilarious when the car got stuck!

Basket of Materials to Cover up the Ramp

The basket includes:

-Bubble Wrap
-Sandpaper
-Silk nightgown
-Fluffy cotton Towel
-Masking Tape

All materials were wide and long enough to cover our ramp (aka small bathroom vanity shelf).

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I'm linking up to Montessori Monday today...

as well as Living Life Intentionally

and, Discover and Explore and No Time for Flashcards!

Transportation Week for Preschoolers - Part 1

Transportation Week. Having already spent an entire week on Trains/Thomas & Friends back in 2012, I decided not to include the engines in this unit except for one activity I'll be presenting later this week. I kind of expected this unit to be more substantial but in the end, I could not come up with any more original ideas (what is wrong with me?) which worked out just fine since we had a short week anyway! :)

Maps + Left and Right

Ouch...Well that did not go too well. I was looking for a way to introduce maps into this transportation unit and figured introducing "left" and "right" would be great too. Turns out that even though those two concepts are great to present to preschoolers, introducing them at the same time is awfully confusing to them. The abstract of being the bus driver turning and such was a bit much for a 4.5 years old so it turned out to be more frustrating for Adrian than educative. That's ok. It made ME learn that my "maps" will have to be simpler and brought on on their own! :)

Airplane controller game

In this air controller game, each airplane is ready to land but to know which airplane gets to land first, the die will have to be rolled. The number rolled corresponds to the airplane that gets to land first, second and third, and so on (each airplane sports a number on its body). I thought it would be great to practice ordinal numbers.

Boomerang Airplane Origami

I actually did not mean to make it a boomerang airplane but to Adrian's delight, after I tested my plane, it came right back to me! :) I guess I lost my touch in basic origami airplane design, huh? Anyhow, prior to us making the planes, I had one set out and two sheets ready to fold. Adrian simply had to follow my folds by looking at where I was folding...which wasn't so simple in the end. It required some help but he was happy with the result. I still think it's too early to do anymore origami. It's not very rewarding for him when I help I think so from now on, I'll lay off the paper folding for a few months and get back to it later.

 
Land, Air, or Water?

This activity could have been done with actual cars, trains, airplanes and such but the variety of vehicles we have here is limited. I must also confess that Adrian loves DK's My First Touch and Feel Picture Cards. We have all 4 sets and so I thought I'd bring out "Things that Go" to do the "Land, Air, or Water" game. He loved it and did extremely well.

Transportation Puzzle

Yet another Melissa & Doug floor puzzle. Although we do not own them all, we certainly might at one point! :) This was the first M&D floor puzzle I bought. At that point, Adrian had never done any "jigsaw" puzzle; only peg puzzles so I wanted something small and this was great. Highly recommended. It fitted in our theme this week so I brought it out to his great delight.

Funneling radiator cooling

For this funneling activity, I purposely chose a cup in which the funnel would touch the bottom and one in which it wouldn't. The trick is that when it doesn't touch the bottom, the "cooling" goes down so much faster and empties itself completely whereas in the other cup, it drains much slower and a residual remains in the funnel. This made it particularly interesting to Adrian who repeated the pouring many, many times at different speeds, from one cup to the other and vice versa.

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If the season allows where you live, here is one activity that my son loved relating to cars which I couldn't bring out again due to weather conditions in our area: the spray body painting of a car as seen below:

I prepared this special activity for Adrian's 4th birthday (under the theme Cars). He loved it and although it was messy it was well worth it. Simply draw a giant version of a car, prepare some water-thinned washable tempera paint and put it in a spray bottle. Tape the drawing to a wall that can be hosed down and let the fun begin!

Trains Week for Preschoolers - Part 3

Preparing activities for trains week came very easily to me. So many things to do with such a wide topic. Here is thus the last post on the matter...

Steamies versus Diesels Sorting

By far the easiest activity for my son who seems to know quite a lot about trains...

Living versus non-living

Enough said... :)

Train building

This activity was a tough one for both *gulp* me and Adrian. He had to move the pieces around quite a bit before it looked right. I printed the "master" from and then traced it on construction paper, cut it up and tried to do it myself. It took me a few tries and it took as many times for Adrian.

Decorating a tunnel

Simple art project to do with a box covered in white paper. I actually intended on having him use several mediums but he only wanted to use the Thomas & Friends stamps. I had also put out markers, crayons and fingerpaint though. Stickers would have worked well too but we were all out of Thomas and Friends stickers. (Wonder who used them all?) :) A tip...Get a sturdy and thick box. Adrian was getting a bit agitated sometimes because the stamps wouldn't "work right". When boxes are too supple, it doesn't print well. My bad!

How many puffs of smoke?

A lovely activity that was well enjoyed. I put out a bowl of  cotton balls and a few engines. I also provided enough die for each engine. Adrian would then roll a die, put it under the engine and put the right amount of smoke puffs above the train. How cute is that?

"Coal" Transfer

For our steamies, coal is needed. As such, it was Adrian's job to put the "coal" (black/grey beads) in the "boiler" (small bowl) with some tongs (because well, coal is hot!). He did well despite the fact that the beads were slightly slippery and the "boiler" quite small. 

Melissa & Doug Alphabet Floor Puzzle in the form of a train

How many wheels

Harold and Captain (part of the Thomas & Friends collection), need wheels I told my son. He then rolled the die and determined how many pasta wheels to give each vehicle.

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Living Montessori Now, B-Inspired Mama, I can Teach my Child, No Time for Flashcards, and 123 Homeschool 4 Me.

Trains Week for Preschoolers - Part 2

Trains! More trains! Here's a few more activities we did during Trains Week in Preschool.

Fine Motor - Making a train track

Hammering nails is something pretty much everybody will have to do at some point so this is a mix of fine motor and practical life exercise I guess. I thought using an egg carton would be a bit more exciting than styrofoam, which, I usually use for hammering activities. I pre-cut 6 black strips of construction paper and provided 6 golf tees and a wood hammer from a pounding toy we have. Adrian then had to hammer down "new tracks" for his trains. It was a bit difficult at first. It seems like he was afraid he wouldn't be able to go through the carton but once he mastered the required amount of strength, it was easy and fun to him.

Adrian working on nailing down the planks for the track

Parts of a train

We've been doing "Parts of something" almost every week since the beginning of the new school year. Of  course, trains being such an important part of Adrian's life, he already knew quite a couple of parts but this worksheet made him learn a few more. I had him color the part as he found it from the "color legend" I made on the right. Worksheet is from Fisher-Price.

Thomas & Friends puzzle

We have a lot of puzzles here and jigsaw puzzles are a lot more challenging than peg puzzle of course. This one wasn't so bad though. Adrian didn't need help in completing it and loved that it came in a tin box.

Sorting & Counting tracks

Yes, something very obvious but fun for a counting lover. I put some tracks in a basket and asked Adrian to sort by different criteria. For example, we sorted by straight versus curved track. We then sorted by lengths for both the straight and curved tracks. We also counted them as we went. 

Sandpaper letters and trains

Adrian learned all his letters by the time he was 18 months old BUT, I taught him the sounds only last year. He still remembers them and so I will be working on literacy a bit more from now on. For this activity, I brought out A-M and a few trains whose name began with a letter in between A and M. He then had to figure out which was the first letter of each train's name and match it to its sandpaper letter. The next day, I did the same with letters N-Z and finally on the third day, I brought out all the letters and different engines. 

Patterning with Thomas & Friends stamps

I purchased these stampers on Ebay last year. They were part of Adrian's birhday favors. They were a big hit and still are. I started 3 sequences of patterns on a sheet and stopped midway on the sheet. Adrian then had to complete each sequence with the right stamps. He did wonderful and loved stamping.

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Today, I'm happily linking up to:

Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  123 Homeschool 4 Me

and Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday.

Trains Week for Preschoolers

Nothing will ever be more exciting than a Thomas & Friends/Trains week for Adrian. We did it last year and I repeated this year and it was a HUGE hit again. I should be posting 3 different times on this subject as we had plenty to keep us busy this last week.

Air, Water, or Land?

Using some of his Thomas & Friends vehicles, Adrian had to sort whether the vehicle was to be seen on road/tracks, in the water or in the sky. Needless to say, it was a quick and easy activity for Adrian.

Matching & Memory Game

A nice little game of matching Thomas & Friends cards and then a memory game followed. There are lots of cards so I let him do the memory game by color to make it a tad easier. We did all the orange cards together, then the blue ones and finally the green ones but when it came to matching, all the cards were on the table. He loves this game and I'm thinking of putting the cards in my purse for when we travel.

Dot-to-Dot

I like this worksheet. Unlike most dot-to-dots, this one has two parts. The train has alphabet letters to join together and then the number dot-to-dot next to it. On top of it, the latter really has to be done well in order to discover what it is and yet, it is easy enough. Adrian worked really hard trying it go through each dot. I had to call the letters and numbers out otherwise he goes straight through and doesn't hit the dots. This printout was found on ThomasTheTankEngineFriends.

Sorting by Color...and more

I brought a small basket of trains to sort by color for Adrian. It's very basic (here it's only blue and green colors) but then I dug deeper into the sorting activity and it also became a counting activity. A loves to count so it was very pleasant for him. We sorted by quantity of wheels, by color, by steamies versus diesels, by tendered engine versus tank engine, etc. Then we had to count the wheels to sort the 4 wheels from the 6 from the 8 and we also counted funnels, whistles, tenders. We extended further by counting the number of trains with glasses, with red stripes and so on. It went on and on. Try it with your kids. The possibilities are endless.

Sorting by Wheel Quantity

Color by Number

If your kid is fond of Thomas & Friends, he probably knows about Patchwork Hiro. Hiro used to be very colorful train before being re-built and re-painted. I found a coloring sheet (ThomasTheTrain) and used it to make a color-by-number activity. Adrian loved it. I wish there wasn't so many lines so there would be less confusion when it came to what is inclusive and exclusive of an area to be colored but oh well. It was lots of fun.

Not pictured but also a big hit was the game of Green Light/Red Light. We pretended to be a train waiting at signals. I showed either a green or red piece of construction paper to let him know whether he could proceed or not. 

More on Train Week later. :)