Click the link to view the full version: WASCZ丨Teaching about Transportation in Kindergarten
Kindergarten is the perfect place for children to enjoy themselves and to become interested in new subjects. ‘Transportation’ is one such topic, and it encourages creativity and engagement, since every child has their own unique interest in it. You will notice their excitement when they talk about cars, as they enjoy sharing information about their parents’ car or recount their recent travel experiences by train or plane. They might also be eager to tell you about any construction work they witnessed on their way to school and the amazing vehicles they encounter near a building site.
Every child has an interest or a passion for transportation and it is our responsibility as teachers to nurture their curiosity and use it as a catalyst for their love of learning. We can achieve this by designing engaging activities using Art, Mathematics, English, and indoor/outdoor play. At WASCZ we do our best to blend subjects together to make the most engaging lessons possible.
Transportation using building materials:
A great way to make a captivating transportation themed lesson is by teaching concepts and letting the children use their own vivid imagination as the teaching aid. We did this by giving the students some transportation themed prompts or challenges such as “who can create the fastest ramp for the cars?” or “Can you make a building that vehicles use” and let the children’s imagination run wild.
Using this idea our students constructed some very creative ideas such as car parks, in which they could fit as many cars as possible, a futuristic helipad to place a toy helicopter on top of, a castle where princesses keep their cars, and also some very impressive ramps.
Letting the children create what ever they can imagine helps promote problem-solving abilities, when they have trouble keeping the structure standing they apply their knowledge and skills to fix the problem. This allows the students to feel a sense of pride seeing their completed structure and showing it to their friends and teachers, on top of that it also gets the students better at teamwork. This activity is always fun, creative and consistently engaging.
Transportation using pretend play:
We also engaged in pretend play by taking a pretend bus journey together by using skills learned in many different classes so far this year.
The students lined up outside the ‘bus’ and we chose one to be the bus driver to drive us to our destination. The other students then took their turns counting coins to pay for their bus tickets and we sang ‘The wheels on the bus’ together while we drove to our destination. Using pretend play is a guaranteed way to create an interactive and fun filled activity where the students can enjoy learning.
Transportation using art:
Our students used their knowledge of shapes and vehicles to create beautiful trains by using different shaped blocks, paint, sponges and cotton wool. They first used rectanglar shaped blocks to create the train carriages and steam chimney and,as you can see, they did a beautiful job with them. They then used circular sponges to create the wheels and finally used cotton wool to create the steam from the train. This activity allows the students to work on shape recognition, fine motor skills, and also creative thinking.
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