Our next preschool theme is transportation! Little Guy loves trains, planes, school buses, and trucks, so this goes well with his interests. During the unit, we are going to an airshow and will be flying to visit family at the end, so the timing of this theme was perfect. This theme will last three weeks.
Little Guy is 39 months old.
What transportation unit would be complete without some trains? We had been playing with his trains lately, so I added some letters from our Bananagrams game, scattering them around the table. As Little Guy pushed his train on the track, he would stop to pick up letters, name them, then put them in his box car. He LOVED this! I think the first day I scattered the letters two additional times, and we also did it the second day during the week. This fun idea came from
There's Just One Mommy.
To work on some gross motor skills, I made this stoplight out of some craft foam. Little Guy threw the bean bags, trying to get one to land on each color. This was a little tricky, but a fun way to practice some throwing. This activity came from
I Can Teach My Child.
For our name practice, I wrote Little Guy's name on a large sheet of paper and turned it into a road. The then had to drive his cars on the "road," identifying what letter he was driving on. We also made some road signs using clothespins and foam, from this idea at
And Next Comes L. Little Guy had a fun time driving different cars around on his name, as well as taking turns with mommy.
We also took some time to use pattern blocks. There are lots of free pattern block available on the web. I found some at
Prekinders and at
NW Florida Money Saving Mom. With as much as Little Guy enjoys doing puzzles, I would think that he would also like to use pattern blocks, but that is not the case. Pattern blocks are something he chooses last, if not at all. Daddy happened to be home with us this morning, so Daddy and Little Guy completed the train together.
Speaking of puzzles, we had several puzzles to work on this week! From my days as a teacher, I had a Melissa and Doug alphabet train floor puzzle (similar to
this one). We had a lot of fun putting it together. We sorted the train cars by color, making it easier to find each letter, as the car colors made a pattern. We sang the alphabet song several times to complete the puzzle, using pointers once the train was complete to point to each letter.
The alphabet train was not the only puzzle we completed. We have
this set of Melissa and Doug transportation puzzles. These puzzles are 12 pieces. Little Guy can work these on his own. Out of the four puzzles in the box, Little Guy completed two (I did not let him do the other two; I wanted to save some for next week!).
To practice counting, he did some Count and Clip cards from
Homeschool Creations. The cards are available up to the number 10, but I only printed the cards to the number 8. This was great numeral recognition practice for Little Guy, as well as some fine motor skills in working the clothespins and putting them in the correct space.
Another math concept we worked on was shapes. I cut out a variety of foam shapes, and Little Guy needed to use those shapes to build trucks. I found this idea on
The Measured Mom. He was pretty reticent to do this, and kept wanting me to help him build his trucks. I would sit down and build a truck, telling him what all the pieces were for, then encourage him to build a truck.
In addition to counting and shapes, we also worked on sorting. I gave a Little Guy a variety of rocks, and he had to sort them into this veggie dish. He did a great job and was able to tell me the rule for each section.
For snack, we practiced more banana cutting. I love to see how his skill and confidence continues to grow!
This was just the beginning! Join us over the next two weeks to see what else we are working on!
Want more ideas? Check out my letter T and letter A Pinterest boards!
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