All Aboard the Learning Train

Today we continued to focus on our theme of transportation.  Our day revolved around trains.  The two stories that we read were Freight Train and I Love Trains.  We learned that the word freight means the goods(stuff) that the train is carrying from one place to another.  The goods can include cattle, grain, coal, and even food.

During centers today the children were given a plastic baggie with a train engine, train cars with the letters of their names stamped on them, and a caboose.  The children formed their train by putting the letters of their names in order.  Then they traced on top of them.  Lastly, they added a tack for their train to run on and wheels. 

In our independent centers the children played a roll and cover game or with play doh. To play the roll and cover game each child was given a transportation game mat, a die, and wheel pasta.  The children rolled the die and placed that many pasta pieces on their mats.  When each form of transportation was covered the game ended. Today I modeled for the children how to make play doh snakes.  I then showed them how to turn the snakes into letters with our letter charts. 

The children were also partnered up with a classmate to cooperatively make a Mat Man.  Each pair of students was given one dry erase board to share.  One student drew a circle face with the dry erase crayon and then pasted it to their partner.  The partner then added the eyes.  Then past the crayon back.  In the end by working together they were able to create wonder drawings of people, as well as learned to share.

We did not have time today to play on the playground, but we did have enough time to take a stroll on the walking trail.  We were able to listen to birds singing, and observe the changes in the season.