Race Cars and Transportation

Race Cars and Transportation 

Daily Question:  Rr  Do you like to play with race cars?

Toys: Train table, cars, town rug, big truck and crane, Linkin blocks, and Race Set.
It is so fun to see the children playing with each other creatively and wanting to continue playing! (Research shows that children learn best when ideas are presented creatively in the form of play.) 
We built a race track our of Duplo blocks and then I asked the children, "Which cars do you think will race down the track the fastest? Why?" We tested our hypotheses. I had each child hold a heavy and a light weight car." Which one will go faster?" The heavy metal cars were the fastest. 

Snacks: Mandarin oranges, animal crackers, and pretzels. 

Today we are talking about Race Cars and Transportation. Transportation is something that is used to carry people from place to place like a race car, train, plane, boat, trolley, subway, etc. Each child picked a mode of transportation from a bag and told everyone what it was and how it helped transport people. 

We read about the Little Engine That Could. This great story talks about being willing to try and saying "I Think I Can!" when trying out something new.

We learned about R the rhinoceros who races rapidly on roller skates down a rainy road, "R-r-r." He is trying to reach the end of the rainbow on his red roller skates, "R-r-r." As you student races with his feet moving them back and forth (like roller-skating) have them practice the letter "r" sound as in rhino, race, and roller skates.

Arts and crafts: Our follow-up activity on the letter R was finger painting with metal race cars across a page while we practiced saying the letter "r" sound.

Transportation Books:

A Book of Things That Go Zoom by Jennifer Frantz. Ill. by Don Tate.

The Little Engine That Could Retold by Watty Piper, Ill. by Geore and Doris Hauman
My Big Train Book (Priddy Books; Big Ideas for Little People)
Get to Work Trucks! by Don Carter 
Road Builders by B.G. Hennessy and Simms Taback
The Story of Flight by Lizzie Pearl. 
Trucks by Byron Barton
Truck by Donald Crews
The Construction Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta and Rob Bolster

Next Lesson: Recycled Robots and R sounds.
*Special thanks to Karen Meeker, Luke's mom, for donating a Vis-a-Vis marker for our "bees." Thank You!