Freight Train Fun

Today I taught my first Toddler Academy class of the session.  Our lesson this week focused on colors and numbers and we used the book Freight Train by Donald Crews as our model.  If you're looking for an age reference for these activities, my youngest guy is two and could complete all of them.  I will give you some ideas to bump up the difficulty as well.

I recreated the train using a pattern I found online.  For storytelling purposes, I laminated them and put felt on the back to use on my felt board.  Each child was given a piece (or two, depending on the size of your group) and when the color was called, they brought the piece up and placed it on the felt board.

At one of our centers, we continued with this idea and used pieces of the freight train that I found online.  I placed the book on the table with the pieces and the kiddos had to match the colors and put the train in order.  I cut a piece of construction paper in two and taped it together so it was long enough to put all of the pieces on.

We also worked on matching colors.  The story focuses on seven colors, so I created trains and "stations" for each color and placed them on a table.  The kids were given several trains in each color and had to put them in the correct station.  If you would like to make this a little more difficult, you could choose one color to create the stations and number them 1-7.  Using the seven colors from the story, label each train with numbers 1-7 and have the kids match each train to the correct numbered station.

To work on number recognition and counting objects, I provided trains numbered 1-5 and marshmallows.  The kiddos were to put the train in order and then add "steam" (marshmallows) for each numbered train.  To make this more difficult, make your train go through ten.

These activities were fun and a great compliment to the story.  My little guy loved putting the trains in the stations and, of course, using glue to put the train together!  If you have a little train lover, these are some great activities to challenge your kids with as the weather turns cooler and you need some ideas for indoor activities.