- small plastic animals and toys
- train sets
- steep
- track
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.5: Create representations of experiences or stories (e.g., drawings, constructions with blocks or other materials, clay models) and explain them to others.
MA Draft STE Standards:
Physical Sciences/Motion and Stability; Forces and Interaction /PS2.B: Using evidence, discuss ideas about what is making something move the way it does and how some movements can be controlled. [Cause and Effect, Stability and Change]
Head Start Outcomes:
Approaches to Learning/Initiative and Curiosity: Demonstrates flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness in approaching tasks and activities.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 4: Engage in play experiences that involve naming and sorting common words into various classifications using general and specific language.
Science and Technology/Physical Sciences 21: Explore and describe various actions that can change an object’s motion such as pulling, pushing, twisting, rolling, and throwing.
Train Talk
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Creative Expression, Imaginative Play, Small Motor Skills, Vocabulary
Add some train sets to the block center. Encourage children to use blocks to create the tracks for their trains. Challenge children to create steep hills, tunnels, and bridges for the trains to climb and cross. Children may wish to place small animals or other toys on their trains.
Have children discuss how the trains move along the tracks.