Transportation

Dramatic Play

Week 1, was a rocket ship. The kids dressed up in space suits, and a Miles from Tomorrowland suit, and blasted off into space! They also used rocket packs to explore space. They had fun counting down, blasting off, and searching for aliens in space.




Week 2, was an airport. I made a cardboard plane for the outside, then had all the chairs lined up inside. I used a broken laptop for the pilot's controls. I added some broken phones and headphones as well. There was also a tray of snacks on the plane, for the flight attendants to hand out. The ticket counter had a phone and cash register, plus a world map and airline tickets. There was a waiting area, suitcases, purses, and a carseat and baby too. We couldn't leave out air traffic control, so I added our construction vest and "light sticks" made from paper towel rolls, so our pilot knew when to take off and land. We had so much fun playing, and all the roles were filled. We flew to fun places like Canada, Australia, Virginia, Zootopia, and Pizza World.

 

 
 

Blocks

Construction Site
My boy has been waiting all year to get all of his tractors out and have them downstairs. I had planned on it only being 1 day, but it stayed out 2 since they liked it so much!


The second week, the airport spilled into the block area, so the blocks areas spilled into the small manipulative areas, with the car rug and airport toys.


Art

We painted with cars.
 
We painted wooden vehicles. I forgot to get a picture! They came from Wal Mart and the kids got to choose from airplanes, shuttles, cars, buses, or helicopters. I was relieved they all found something they liked, and there were no hurt feelings!

We played with vehicle file folder games, since blocks spilled into small manipulatives, and our chairs were gone from art for the airport.

We drove cars in shaving cream. This worked perfectly for a day we didn't have chairs around the table. The ran around and around the table, driving their cars and making tracks.

Small Manipulatives

We had a felt mat with construction and emergency vehicles.

Thomas the train matching game
 
The Little Engine that Could felt board story
 
ABC trains

Puzzles: construction site, neighborhood, fire engine, outer space.

Vehicle shadow matching folder games.

Writing

Stamps made from transportation stickers on milk lids

Glow in the dark space stickers


Transportation stickers

Snack

Graham cracker traffic lights
 
Banana airplanes
 
Outside
I made cars from diaper boxes. I forgot pics again. They're just spray painted, and have wheels on the sides. Then elastic shoulder straps. They discovered these were perfect for playing Rescue Bots and Transformers, because they could go inside to "transform," then get out and run around to be a robot.

We also had a few rainy, inside days where we played parachute.

Large Group

Day 1, we read Go Dogs Go and talked about different forms of transportation. We played an ABC matching game. I used cards with different types of trucks and cars, and they had capital or small letters written on them. This was a great practice, since during dinosaur week, we had matched the letter dinosaurs, and the letter eggs. We reviewed the matching letters, then they each got a card with a letter on it and had to find their partner with their matching letter (capital or small). They had a lot of fun and while I thought we'd only go through half of the alphabet that day, they wanted to keep going, and we went through it all!

Day 2, we worked on beginning sounds, and found the beginning sounds of different vehicles. Then we sorted them by the letter they started with.

Day 3, we read about airplanes, then decorated and put together our own styrofoam airplanes. They flew them around the room while they waited for their friends to finish, then we took them outside to fly.

Day 4, we read about boats, then made foil boats. We put them in water, and tried to see how many Fisher Price little people we could stack on them until they sunk. Afterwards, we talked about the features of the boats who held the most without sinking, and they got to make more. Instead of taking turns and going one at a time, they were able to just build and test their boats as they were ready. They really like this activity! I was impressed by how little help they needed.

Small Group

Week 1, Miss Kim was gone, so we just worked together as a whole group to do a transportation sorting worksheet. This is one of the only times you'll see me mention a worksheet! I just never use them. I liked that this one gave them good cutting practice, and then they sorted the vehicles by where they go: land, air or water.

Week 2, Miss Kim's group worked on letter recognition. I had a box lid with a parking lot drawn with a letter in each spot. They chose a letter card, then had to drive their car to the spot with the matching letter. They also worked on tracing their names.

My group practiced patterns with different vehicles. They are great at extending patterns, and some are making their own.

Transportation

Dramatic Play
We blasted off to space in our rocket ship and rocket packs. They had so much fun and played so well together, I kept it out both weeks, although I had only planned on using it the first week.
 
Week 2 I added other cardboard vehicles. I transformed diaper boxes into cars and planes. I learned that spray paint does not cover them, but at least turns the baby heads different colors :) I simplyt attached elastic straps for their cars and some wheels. My daughter did point out that Daniel Tiger's cardboard cars looked better. I guess I was just leaving more room for imagination (which ended up being good, instead of lazy, because some kids pretended the cars were trains).

Blocks
Dramatic Play carried over here, but the first week it was smaller, so I had out a variety of large cars, trucks, trains, and boats.


I also added this shape game week 2.
 
Art
We played with lots of cars!
We drove cars on playdough.
 
We drove cars through paint.
 
We drove cars through shaving cream.
And took one break from the cars to make rocket packs too. One of the kids mentioned making one with his mom and adding stickers. So I checked my "beautiful junk" stash and had enough for a rocket pack for each kids. I added some felt flames and a little coat of spray paint, then they got to dress them up with space stickers.
 

Small Manips
I had a cool felt play area, perfect for this unit, dropped off on my porch from a neighbor this week! It fit perfectly on our new round table too. The kids loved it.
 
We played with transportation lacing cards (thanks Dollar Tree).
 
We played with transportation file folder games (thanks to cards from Dollar Tree).
 
 
 
Week 2, I had a different car rug out with the big chunky cars, planes, trains, and boats.
 
We also played with a Thomas matching game.
We re-enacted The Little Engine That Could with the flannel board story.
 
We had a book on cd, called Big Heli and Little Heli.

Writing
Transportation and construction stickers.
 
Transportation stamps
 

Outside
We had some inside days with temps below 10 degrees, and the days we did go out were snow days!

Snack
Our 2 transportation-related snacks were:
Banana Airplanes
Each child got half a banana, pretzel sticks for wings, and mini colored marshmallows for windows and they each creatively created their own airplane.
 
 
We watched part of a Mighty Machines movie about Airplanes as they ate.

Apple Boats
Each child got half an apple and pretzel sticks to make a sail and put it together themselves.

Large Group
Day 1, we learned and read about Boats, then played Will It Float? with many classroom objects. It was fun making predictions, then charting our results.
 
Day 2, we read about different types of transportation, then wrote in our journals about different types we've used and like.
Day 3, we read The Little Engine that Could, then retold the story with our flannel board.
Day 4, we read about construction vehicles, and made patterns with vehicle cards.

Small Group
Week 1: Transportation Math
Our mom volunteers helped the kids practice counting with dump trucks by counting blocks into them. I found it here on pinterest. We had the printable dump truck, but they liked using a real truck.
I helped them practice patterns with these cards that are also a free printable. I was very impressed that EVERY child can correctly extend a pattern. I tried to have the older group create their own patterns and we weren't as successful, but they tried and I'm proud of where they are, cuz they're right where they should be. We'll keep practicing!
Week 2: Transportation Literacy
Our mom volunteers helped the kids play this letter parking game. I wrote the alphabet in "parking stalls" on box lids, and the kids drove cars into the stalls that matched the letters the moms had on flash cards.
I practiced letters and sounds with them at our "alphabet center." We've used it to practice our small and capital letters, but today we used pictures to sort by beginning sounds. To tie it into transportation, they "flew" a big airplane to the chart with their picture, and had to land it in the right letter.