Weekly Learning Theme: Transportation

I was looking through my plan book and wanted to find a week I knew Carter would absolutely love.  When I came across the transportation week I knew it would be a hit.  After I'd decided on it and requested all the books at the library I realized the weekend before was the Runway Run 5k.  It was perfect!  Carter got really excited about airplanes after the race and then we were able to visit the Air and Space Museum for free during the week since I won a family membership at the race.  Lately Carter hasn't wanted me to take his picture so I don't have quite as many pictures for this post as usual.


Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks.  I have updated our objectives from the original ones we focused on because Carter mastered those skills.  I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives.  Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually.  The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

1. Take turns in a simple game.
2. Understand the meaning of mine, his, hers.
3. Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature).  Since Carter was doing so well sorting by shape and color I already started having him sort by other features.
4. String beads or other objects.
5. Count to 3 and understand what the numbers mean.  Carter can count to 3, but we're still working on understanding what each number means.

Activities/Movement:

• Carter sorted the different modes of transportation.  I printed out pictures of bikes, cars, airplanes, trains, and boats and he put them in piles based on the type of transportation.  Instead of printing 3 of the same picture like I have in the past, for example the same bike picture printed 3 times, I printed 3 different pictures to stretch him a little bit.  As he sorted we talked about where each item traveled: on land, in the air, or in the water.  We also talked about the colors of each of the items.  When he was finished sorting we counted how many of each kind of transportation we had.  Then I asked him how many there were and he responded with the last number we said when counting.   For an older child you could have them sort the transportation cards based on where they travel: air, water, or land.  You could also give them the cards and ask them to sort them.  When they're finished, have them explain how they sorted them.

 

• Throughout the week we played airplane numerous times.  We did the version where I get on my back on the floor and Carter puts his tummy on my feet and I push him in the air.  We also did it where I'm sitting down and he sits on my feet and I lift him in the air.  He loves it and is so cute when he puts his arms to the side.  I made sure to use flight lingo while we played as well.

• Carter played with his Hot Wheels cars and his large car he can sit in and push buttons.  When he played with his Hot Wheels cars we talked about colors and he sorted them based on color.  Later in the week we made a ramp out of a book and he drove his cars down the ramp.

 

• Carter also played with boats during bath time.  If we'd done this week during warmer weather we would have played with boats outside using his water table as well.

• We had a puzzle that shows different ways to travel.  Carter enjoyed doing the puzzle.  I had him tell me what each picture was of.  Then we talked about where that object travels.  He realized that all of the pictures on the puzzle were of things that travel on land.

• I wanted Carter to feel the tread on tires and I also need to start working on having him walk to the car and wait while I get Elise in the car.  So I had him feel the tires one day when we were getting ready to go somewhere.  Then I started asking him to go touch the tire and keep his hand there while he waited on me.  I'll start the car and put my water bottle in the cup holder while he stands with his hand on the tire waiting for me to help him into the car.

  

  This time he wanted a drink while he waited so I let him hold my water bottle as I started the car.

• I also made sure to pull Carter's Strider out and make sure he got a chance to ride it during the week.  He even got it out a few times on his own and rode it.  He wasn't too pleased when I took his picture so I just have a grumpy face picture.

• One day when Jake was with us we went for a ride in the wagon.  My plan was for Carter to wear his train engineer hat and take a whistle so we could go on a wagon "train" ride, but Carter wanted to walk.  So we abandoned that idea and just walked to the library with the wagon.  After a while Carter wanted to pull the wagon so I let him.  He actually did a great job!

Carter pulling Jake in the wagon.

• I really wanted to come up with a way for Carter to string objects onto a shoelace.  After thinking for a while I came up with the idea of printing pictures of planes and hole punching them so he could string the planes.  When he was finished stringing them all he made airplane noises while pretending to fly the planes.  I was surprised that it was one of his favorite activities.  We also counted the airplanes after stringing them to see how many we had.

Stringing a plane on the shoelace.

Pretending to fly the planes.

• We went to the mall and played on the escalators and when we were at the Air and Space Museum Carter got to push the button for the elevator and ride it to the next floor.  He thoroughly enjoyed both.  We even ended up riding up the escalators over and over.

  

  Going down the escalators!

  

  Riding the escalator with sister!

• Carter played with his train set.  While he played he made train noises and I talked about what the train was doing using specific words such as train track, rails, leaving the station, all aboard, engine, and caboose.

  

  He even put the track together on his own!

• We talked about what a red light and what a green light mean when it comes to traffic lights.  Then we played Red Light, Green Light.  We also talked about the signals for pedestrians in crosswalks and I pointed to them during a walk explaining the orange hand means stop and the white body means walk.

Craft:

• We used some Hot Wheels cars to create a painting.  Carter picked out a car to use and then drove it through paint I had put on a paper plate.  Then he drove the car on his piece of paper.  The painting turned out pretty cool.  I later thought I should have gotten out his Play Doh and had him make tracks in the Play Doh with his cars as well.

 

• We also made airplanes out of popsicle sticks.  I gave Carter 2 full-size popsicle sticks and one I'd cut down for a tail wing.  He decorated his sticks with markers and then I taped them together using electrical tape left over from his birthday party.  He walked around making airplane noises while flying the plane and was super excited to show his plane to daddy.  It was very cute!

Flying his popsicle plane.

Special Snack:

• I gave Carter snacks that lended themselves to be lined up like a train.  I didn't suggest he make a train with his food, he chose to do it on his own.  I figured he would because he loves to make trains by lining things up and even did it with Kit Kats when decorating his birthday cake.  My favorite was when I gave him a pile of crackers and he lined them up touching each other and excitedly told me he'd made a train!

Making a train using his crackers.

Make Believe:

• We pretended to be airplanes by walking or running with our arms stretched out from our sides while making flying noises.  We also played one of Carter's favorite games, Train, where he leads and you follow him around while saying "chugga chugga choo choo" or he follows while you lead.  He was super excited to play Train this weekend with Garrett, Ty's cousin Megan's son.  Garrett would crawl around while Carter crawled after him.  Carter wanted me to join in too and I did for a while, but this giant belly is only good for crawling on hard wood floors for a limited amount of time!

Carter following Garrett during a game of Train.

Carter's turn to lead.

Songs:

• I know there are probably lots of songs about transportation out there, but we were so busy with all of our other activities we only sang "The Wheels on the Bus".  Carter's favorite version is the Pete the Cat version so I let him watch it a couple of times throughout the week.

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

• The Saturday before our week on transportation started we had the perfect kick off to the week with the Runway Run 5k at the Air and Space Museum.  Carter rode in the stroller while Uncie Taco and Oma walked and pushed him.  He enjoyed the planes parked on the runway, but got tired and upset about half-way through the race.  After everyone finished we had enough time to walk through the museum a little bit and Carter really enjoyed it.

Checking out the museum after the race.

• Since Jeremy and I finished top overall male and female we got free memberships to the Air and Space Museum.  We took Carter back on Wednesday and were able to visit the planetarium which we hadn't even known they had on Saturday and tour the large passenger plane.  Carter again had a blast and we saw a lot of things we missed the first time.  Carter got to help Jeremy fly a model plane and he played with balls and air, seeing how airplanes get lift for take off.

Watching the balls lift off!

Flying a plane with Uncie J.

• We also went back and visited the train we went to see during train week.  Carter loved it just as much as before and was interested in different things than before.  He wanted to walk on the rails as well as the slats on the ground under the rails.  We talked about the parts of the train such as the engine, wheels, and caboose.  While we were there I noticed the train was set up with Christmas lights around the wheels, on the track, and across the body of the train.  Next year we'll make sure to drive by to see the lights on the train during Christmas time.

Posing at the front of the train.

Checking out the caboose and turning the wheel.

Books:

• Trains Go by Steve Light
• Babies on the Go by Debby Slier 
• Touch and Feel Tractor by DK Kids
• The Pigeon Loves Things that Go! by Mo Willems
• The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper
• Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry
• Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
• My First Tractor by  DK Reader
• Freight Train by Donald Crews
• Thomas' Magnetic Play Book by 
• Llama Llama Zippity-Zoom by Anna Dewdney
• Big Rig Bugs by Kurt Cyrus
• Diggers Go by Steve Light
• Things That Go by Jill Dubin
• Things That Go by DK Readers
• Trucks by Anne Rockwell
• My Bus by Byron Barton
• My Car by Byron Barton
• Airplanes by Byron Barton
• Boats by Byron Barton
• Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman
• Boats by Charles Reasoner