- chairs
- stuffed animals and other toys
- train tickets (small pieces of paper)
- ride
- ticket
- train
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening: SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Logic and Reasoning/Symbolic Representation: Engages in pretend play and acts out roles.
Logic and Reasoning/Symbolic Representation: Recognizes the difference between pretend or fantasy situations and reality.
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.
All Aboard!
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Gross Motor Skills, Imaginative Play, Storytelling, Vocabulary
Set up a “ticket window” at a table. Create a train with rows of chairs, side-by-side with aisles between them. Explain to children that they will be travelers riding on the train with the animals and other toys. Tell children that the Little Blue Engine will help them when their train breaks down.
- Let children decide who will be the ticket seller, the train conductor (who takes the tickets), the other trains, the clown, and the Little Blue Engine. (Suggest that they take turns.) The other children should each buy a ticket and get on board with the toys.
- As children pretend to ride the train, help them make connections to real train rides. Suggest they move their bodies as the train lurches to a stop, and when it is pulled up the mountain and down into the valley.
- If possible, videotape so you can play it back after the train ride.
Adaptation: Groups with a large age range may wish to pair older and younger children for the play so older children can guide younger ones in making up dialogue.