Trains Preschool

I cannot believe it has been two weeks already since I did this lesson! In spite of not knowing exactly what I was going to do until the night before, this turned out to be one of my favorite lessons that I have done thus far! Especially the craft. Although I was afraid of working with hot glue with the kids, the trains turned out so cute!

We started the lesson with the usual welcome song and review of the day and date. Then I asked the kids who likes trains. Who doesn't?! We watched a short video on YouTube and then read the book I Love Trains. Such a great book! It was one of many given to me by a friend and I happened to see it in the kids' room one day and flipped it open. Inside, it has pictures of the different types of train cars along with a short story. I then had the kids sort our plethora of toy trains by type. We then counted them and compared how many we had of each. It was a great way to illustrate more, less than, greater than, and equal to. I originally thought this would also be a good time to introduce the kids to tally marking; however, this seemed just a bit much. So we went with ordinal numbers.

The kids were having such a fun time playing with the trains that I just had time to share one more video. I liked that this video had the signs for railroad crossings.  (There is one between our house and Nastia's so the kids got to watch for it the following week.) If we had done this lesson at Christmas, I would also have read The Polar Express.

(As I took the time to put Wyatt down before starting the lesson, we got started a bit late. Somehow, it all seemed to be just perfect!)

For snack, I had constructed train cars using graham crackers and cream cheese. However, when the kids tried to help me move the trains, they fell apart.

Consequently, I have no pictures of the snack train, but the trains I do have pictures of are the ones that really count.



I scoured Pinterest looking for craft ideas. I saw the trains made of Life Savers and various other candies, but fell in love with these pasta trains.

With the help and patience of the other moms, we had some locomotive masterpieces!

Nikolai and the BRAAAAAIIIIINS train

Hyrum

Landon

Callie - love the hair. =)

Timmy and Nadya got to make trains too!

Seamus didn't want to pose for me, but he did make a great train! Definitely going to repeat this lesson!