Vroom! Vroom! Transportation Theme

What comes to mind when you think of a transportation unit?  Cars, trucks, trains, buses, bikes... there are so many possibilities, and the children seem to love them all!  Putting this blog post together, I found so many incredible pictures of transportation activities that we've done... so fasten your seat belt!  We're off!  

First stop, outer space.  I found the idea for our rocket ships at crafty-crafted.com and thought it was so adorable!  Most children seem to enjoy having their feed painted - I think it's the tickle-y feeling and the 1-1 time with a teacher... oh yeah, and the paint and craft supplies... We save our hand and foot print crafts in an alphabet binder, which I promise to share with you soon.

 I bought my astronaut costume on the day after Halloween, when everything was on clearance.  The children quite literally loved it to death.  It was used so hard by so many kiddos that it eventually split in the back and the zipper broke.  Any toy or material that the children use until it is unusable is a winner in my book, far better than those toys that just sit on a shelf unused.

 These kiddos are playing one of the games I created for my Astronauts and Aliens games pack.  It includes two space themed game boards, each in both a full color and a printer-friendly version, plus a snap/concentration style game, all focusing on learning the letter A - although you could use the space themed game boards with whatever skill you want your kiddos to learn.

 Another fun idea that I found via Pinterest.com at redesignrevolution.com it's a great idea for recycling bottles and making a high interest toy all at once.  Who doesn't like free toys?!

While I do believe play is very important for young children, and have offered my students a lot of time to explore their world through play, I know there is also room for learning more academic skills.  I believe there is a lot of room for those two philosophies to overlap - so we learned about non-standard units of measurement in a playful way, with these transportation themed math manipulatives from Lakeshore learning.

 I also have a collection of vehicle shaped beads, which the children love to sort by shape, color, translucent/non... so many possibilities. 

 

  

Maybe your budget won't allow for manipulatives right now.  (I didn't buy mine new either!)  I've put together some math mats and a collection of paper vehicles to make it easy to incorporate math skills into a transportation unit.

You probably already have puzzles on hand for your kiddos - and if you don't, really, it's time to hit up some garage sales and pick some up.  Puzzles allow children the opportunity to learn to match shapes and colors, to think logically, to manipulate the pieces to develop spacial reasoning skills... and they are also fun!

No transportation unit would be complete without cars and trucks, the kind of transportation that our children have the most experience with. 

 

 The children have spent a lot of time "driving" the big trucks around the backyard.  For the children who really need big body play, bending over to hold a truck, and then running full tilt through the grass is pure joy.  When we're done running, we may as well have a car wash, and clean those vehicles up!  (Do you hear the music for "Working at the car wash" in your head now?  Yes, we sang it while we worked!)

 Another favorite play item that the children love enough to wear out, is our huge cardboard tubes.  People often ask where I got these, as there are so many great ways to use them, but it's not the kind of item you run to the craft store for.  No.  These were scavenged from the curb when neighbors had new carpet installed - the carpet comes wrapped on these awesome tubes.  Silly neighbors, they didn't know what the tubes are for, and tossed them out. (If you work with children long enough, I think you lose all sense of pride, and start picking up learning materials where-ever you find them.)

These kiddos are rolling toy cars and balls down the tubes.  It's great fun to put them in the top of the tube, then race to the bottom to see them magically appear!

 Here are the same small cars and some construction vehicles, and the children thoroughly enjoying moving some soil around with the trucks.  This was lovely sensory play, pretend, and an opportunity to work on co-operation with our friends, as the children built "road blocks", made mountains, and even buried trucks.

You probably also have bikes for your children, another great big body play opportunity with a transportation theme.  I have the kids wear helmets, not only for safety, but also because our state has a helmet law, and I do believe in starting out as you intend to continue.  Why let a toddler ride without one, then suddenly try to make them wear it later?  Chances are, they'll resist.  My kiddos know that there is not only no riding without a helmet, but you can't even claim a bike until your helmet is on.  Wow, do they move fast to get their helmets!

Trains, trains, trains!  We love trains! Trains sets, block trains, train crafts, and of course, real trains!  I like to approach each theme with a variety of experiences, so there is something that's just right for each child. 

Here are a few more vehicle ideas.  I've created an "ambulance" from a children's wheeled cart and some posterboard.  When we learn about the letter A, they drive the ambulance and say "aa-aa  aa-aa" (an ambulance sound) as they drive it.  This idea came from a brilliant presenter and author many years ago.  I recently gave the book to another provider, and the name eludes me right now.  I will remember and post it here!

 I found the tractor at funhandprintartblog.com.  Don't you love having so many wonderful ideas at your fingertips?  I so love the internet!  (I'll age myself for a moment.  When I was a teen, the thing I desperately desired was an encyclopedia set, so that when I wanted to find something out, I could just do it, rather than waiting for the public library to open, and walking there to look it up in the encyclopedia!  Okay, dated myself, and revealed my nerdiness.)

Another vehicle the kiddos are all familiar with is the bus.  This is a great thing to talk about when we're reading the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.  I was lucky enough to find a fun Don't Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus board game last year, and the kids LOVED it.  Board games are a great way to practice taking turns, counting spaces to move, following directions, and cooperating with a group.

How have I not mentioned food yet?!  Food is another great way to get children's attention and interest.  Coupled with this obviously sweet bus treat picture, that sounds nutritionally and educationally dreadful.  I promise I don't mean bribing or rewarding children with calorie laden junk, (although we do occasionally enjoy a treat).  I'm thinking of food, and particularly food preparation, as another high interest, multisensory approach to learning.  When we made our bus treat (graham cracker, frosting, rollos for wheels, chocolate squares for windows, candy for stop sign) we talked about colors and shapes, and the children worked on fine motor skills and following directions to put their treat together.

Here's a bus themed activity that I created to work on subtraction skills...

and for children who are beginning to read...


I haven't mentioned ships and boats and submarines yet.  Here's an adorable hand print that Ms. Julie came up with for the letter Y.  It's the only water-faring vehicle I can remember doing anything for! 

I haven't gathered any on my Pinterest Transportation Board either,


so I can see that I'm going to have to work on that.  Do you have any favorite transportation ideas you'd like to share?  Please leave it in the comments below.  Thank you for stopping by Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten!

Upcycling for Early Childhood Educators

Recently I hosted and presented a training about upcycling for early childhood providers.  I've been scouring Pinterest for awesome examples of reusing and repurposing in ways that are child friendly, and have compiled a board of ideas: http://www.pinterest.com/paulaspreschool/upcycle/.  All the projects you'll see on this post are on my pinterest board - please follow the link to go back to the sources of our inspiration.

After showing some of the examples of upcycled materials I use with my kiddos, I provided each participant with a bag that included a picture of a project to make, and the supplies to make it.  Everyone chose a project that they felt comfortable with - from very simple and with straightforward directions, to a box of "stuff" with complete creative license.  Then we got to work.

Here's a strap on rocket pack for pretend play...

... a counting puzzle, using pieces of straws in the shape of tally marks...

... a box for vehicles to drive through, complete with a clock and a waterfall...

...a scoop for ball tossing, and five little monkeys (made of corks) bothering poor Mr. Alligator...  The monkeys are numbered, and all different heights, perfect for number review and acting out the rhyme...

...a castle with Olaf and a princess, inspired by Frozen, of course. 

...owls that are simple enough that many of our children could make them for themselves...

... a cereal box guitar with rubber bands that actually make sound...

... a "Monster Mouth" box to feed letters to...

... a milk jug snowman, with bottle tops to sort by color, and to count as they are put into the snowman...

... a hanging planter made from an old plastic bottle...

There were many other awesome ideas, suggested by the pictures I handed out, but adapted by each of the creative individuals working on them.   Unfortunately I didn't get good pictures of some projects.  Not shown is the rain gauge - complete with a graph to show how a class could observe and record the weather.  I also missed the set of 20 paper tubes with the numbers 1 - 10 written on them - suitable for bowling, matching, and ordering numbers.  

So what did we take away from this training?  There are many ways to use and reuse materials, and teaching and learning is everywhere 2 people come together.  We may not always have a lot of resources, but we can use what we have to teach language, math, science, art and much more!  We are creative and dynamic individuals.  

If you are a parent looking for home childcare in the Arlington, Texas area, please check out our referral page at www.choosehomechildcare.com/.

More ice play!

 A few weeks ago I blogged about our fun ice play, and about how long the children played and worked together to get all the little toys out of the ice.  It was such a successful play experience, that we've revisited ice play several times since.  This week I added some new twists.

 When we went outside to play with the ice, we found it was very difficult to get the ice out of the bucket.  The sides of the bucket are straight, and as I took it directly from the freezer to the play table, there hadn't been time for the ice to melt enough to separate from the bucket.  I asked the kiddos what we should do.

 There were a lot of suggestions, everything from "hit it hard" to "pour water on it," to "leave it in the sun until it melts."  We tried hitting it first, taking turns to smack the bottom of the upturned bucket.  Not surprisingly, it was very hard and unyielding.  I was really proud of the kiddos towards the end who decided they really didn't need to hit it - they'd seen their friends' faces, and the lack of results, and just didn't need to go there for themselves.

 Pouring water on it didn't work very quickly, but we continued, and sat it in the sun at the same time, and were eventually able to release it from the bucket.

 This time I offered empty squirt bottles as well as cups for the children to pour the water.  They were fascinated with the squirt bottles, which was just as well, as I had (foolishly!) only made one large block of ice for them to share.

 Here's some great recycling and reusing: empty mustard bottles and snowcone syrup bottles.  Refilling them was also a fascinating process - most of the children tried to pour water back in the same way it had come out, only to find the tiny openings very frustrating. 

I helped out with loosening a few lids, and they quickly caught on, removing and replacing lids as necessary.

 Just as before, some kiddos were happy to work at releasing the trapped "treasure", and others wanted to play with the pieces that had come out.  Others just played with the water and the pouring experience. 

 Fast forward a few days.  We played ice again!  This time I had prepared several frozen containers, and replaced the cups with tiny pipettes.  We got a fine motor workout!

 Learning how to get water into the pipettes was tricky, I had to hold several children's hands and talk them through the process a few times, but eventually everyone could do it.

 It definitely took a lot longer to pour enough water over the ice to melt it to release the new treasure: reused lids. 

 As you can see, the children were very engaged with what they were doing, very focused on their self directed goals.  Even though we all played with the same set of materials, every child had a unique experience, using the materials in their own ways, and in their own time.  This is what I believe early childhood education should look like!

If you are interested in enrolling your child in my program, please also check out my website at www.paulaspreschoolandkindergarten.webs.com and submit the "contact me" form.