Oh The Places You'll Go... Transport

Our children are currently interested in transport, so I just wanted to share some ideas that I have been doing in my classroom related to transport.

Small World Play

We made this construction site last year after some children started talking about building, construction sites, and creating their own building sites in the sand trays.  I first saw this construction site idea on Facebook.

I cut up a box as above, and the children helped to paint it.  We painted the sky blue both inside and outside. The children then drew cloud shapes on white paper, cut them out and glued them in (great pre-writing skills).  We then chose some pictures from the internet that we printed off, cut out, and glued in.  We put a layer of sand in the bottom, and I added some pebbles and small stones.  A parent had also given us these toy construction site items which were in storage, so I brought them out and they were perfect for our little construction site!  I also bought some construction site vehicles from the $2 shop to add to our play area. These very quickly made their way out of the room, never to be seen again!

Small World Play

We painted the tables with a road and set up the construction site, vehicles, toy cars, and railway.

Airport

We are lucky to be given offcuts of matboard from the local picture framers down the road.  I used matboard to create an airport and control tower, complete with Departure Gate, and Arrivals Gate.  I also made some aeroplanes out of matboard, but I haven't seen them since the day I made them!

Our children had been bringing in toy cars from home from Show & Tell, so I drew a road on the carpet for them to drive their cars on.  I put the airport on the side of the road, and also drew a carpark for cars to park in. 


I use chalk to draw on the carpet, and it vacuums off easily. I do have a rule that only teachers draw on the carpet - children can draw with chalk outside or on the blackboards.

 Literacy Activity

I created this literacy activity to go along with the children's interest in transport.  It consists of a variety of images of different types of transport (aeroplane, hot air balloons, race car, motorbike, police car, ambulance, bus, train, etc) with the words underneath.  (You can see the pictures of the aeroplane, firetruck and police car being used in the above photo of the airport).

I copied all the letters used in the words, laminated them, and cut them out. The children match the letter and place it on their word.  It leads to conversations with children about initial letters and sounds, individual letters,  spaces between words ("Teacher, there is a letter missing".  "Oh - it's not missing a letter, that is a space to show where one word ends and a new word begins."), how words are made up of letters, alphabet recognition, positioning ("Is the letter 'a' facing the same way as the 'a' on the picture?"), matching ("This is a letter 'B'.  Does your letter look like this?") and capital letters and lower case letters.

We also use the images to play games such as "Guess My Vehicle" where I give out clues and children have to guess the vehicle I am describing.  The children then imitate the teacher and play this game during their play.  

Number Train

This is made out of felt so is great to use with flannel boards for mat time.  I created the train stencil by placing clear acetate over my iPad, and tracing a picture of a train and carriage.  I then drew around the template onto different coloured felt, and glued felt numbers on to the carriage.  You can use this for ordering numbers, sequencing, counting forwards and backwards, and number identification. This could also be a table-top activity where children can play with the train, order the carriages, or get some little counters or objects and children can put the corresponding number of objects on each carriage.

Parents have been sharing photos of their children on and in different types of transport, which are printed out and put on our wall.

We have created an Airport in our family corner, with a Check In Desk (an old computer desk); a baggage xray machine (a cardboard box with 2 sides cut out at either end, covered in a black plastic rubbish bag with strips cut at each end); a Travel Agent with old calendar pictures of NZ on display, a large map of NZ and a large World Map on the wall, and a children's Book of the World on display.  

Both the Travel Agent and the Check In Desk had clipboards and pencils, and I printed off Tickets and Boarding Passes from Sparklebox.  The children wrote their names and random letters and numbers on their tickets and boarding passes (although some just scribbled but that's ok too). 

The Check In Desk had a stamp pad and stamp, to stamp boarding passes.  I did notice at one point the stamp pad lying on the ground and black footprints leading to the toilet! (It wasn't difficult to identify the culprit!)

The blackboard easel was used to display the travel agent's pictures on one side, and Departures, Destinations and ETD's on the other side.

Chairs were lined up along the mat to be the seats on the plane, and after making their way through 'Security', children have been stowing their bags under their seats, sitting down and reading various reading material that they have picked up from the travel agent!

Our airport also had a cafe, and children chose the items on the menu and decided how much they would cost (with a little support from me! I wanted to keep it simple but also teach number identification, initial sounds, and initial letters. 

This is an Airline Identification game.  I downloaded images of various airlines that come into Auckland Airport (or that represent countries where our children are from), so we can learn to identify different airlines, and find out which country they come from.

We have also been playing a game I call Destination where I have printed off images of 4 destinations:  China, Australia, Fiji, and Queenstown.  The destinations are put on different walls around the classroom.  I call out a destination and children go to that destination.

Late snack has been a fun time where we watch the various Air New Zealand safety videos on Youtube, then I pretend to be cabin crew when I give out their sandwiches.

We made passports, and the children wrote their names (or I wrote their names) and they drew a picture of themselves as their photo.  I will take individual photos of all of the children as well, and then they can cut out their photo and glue it on to the front of their passport. 

Our airport roleplay has only just begun, and it has been such fun.  Next I will brainstorm other ideas such as bus stops and train stations. Over the past month we have been roleplaying Speedway (as requested by one of our children who often goes to Speedway) which is a great way to release energy, increase stamina and fitness (as they run around and around the sandpit) but they also make their own tickets using a ruler and scissors, which helps develop the essential skill of cutting with scissors.

We also made paper-copters, which are heaps of fun and you can find the instructions to make them here.

I have created a Spotify playlist of appropriate songs about transport:

Yello - The Race
Cake - The Distance
Peter, Paul and Mary - Leaving on a Jet Plane
The Wiggles - Do The Bus Stop
Playsongs People - We all go travelling by
The Wiggles - Toot, toot, chugga chugga, big red car
The Wiggles - Do the Propeller!
Dave Rawlings Machine - Monkey and the Engineer
Kidsongs - Down By The Station
Susie Tallman - I've been working on the railroad
Susie Tallman - Wheels On The Bus
Susie Tallman - She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain
Babyjazz Family Band - Train Is A Coming
Bear Tracks - This Train is Bound for Glory
Gracie Lou - Chugga Chugga Choo Choo
Kylie Minogue - Locomotion
Kidzone - Down At The Bus Stop
Dance X Winners - Driving in My Car
Madness - Driving in my car
The Devil Makes Three - Uncle Harvey's Plane
They Might Be Giants - Choo Choo Express

This by no means is exhaustive, but is a start to a Transport based playlist.

I hope these ideas help to inspire you when your children show an interest in transport.

Click on the link for more of my teaching resources