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Some ideas for lesson planning[]
Due to the fact that my students live in the city and a lot of them use public transportation to travel, this is a topic that I overhear the children consistently talking about. Many children ride the trains to school, and members of their families also ride the train to get to work and school, commute to and from the home. As stated by Copple and Bredekamp, “recognizing children’s natural curiosity and desire to make sense of their world and gain new skills, teachers consistently plan learning experiences that children find highly interesting, engaging, and comfortable” (2009, 158).
Objectives: Children will be able to hold a conversation describing their experience taking the trip and creating the artwork. Children will be able to maintain balance during movements and activities. Children will make use of new words in conversation when describing their experience. Children will be able to use materials such as pencil, paint brushes, scissors effectively and manipulate small objects. Children will understand and follow spoken directions. Children will identify and describe shapes.
Standards: Communicate experiences, ideas, needs, choices, and feelings by speaking. Listen with understanding to conversations, directions, rhymes, songs, and stories. Talk for a variety of purposes like play monologues, play dialogues, imaginative discourse, information and understanding, social interactions, critical analysis, literary responses and expressions. Describe and share their own experiences. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-5 (with 0 representing count of no objects). Child identifies modes of transportation. Pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.
Method: Discussion and activities through integrated curriculum.
Duration: 3-4 weeks depending on children’s interest.
Age: 4-5 years old.
Materials: Plastic soda bottles, stickers, glue, construction paper, glitter, crayons, strings, markers, books, music player
Reading Material: All Aboard by Mary Lyn Ray, Train Song by Diane Siebert, Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis.
Activities:
· Field Trip: Taking a trip to the Transit Museum and having a discussion, and writing about their experience.
· Reading: books about trains, the ones mentioned above.
· Art: Making train cars- give each child a small rectangle shape to decorate it as they wish using crayons, markers, paint, glitter, strings, etc. Once done add two wheels and display paper as if each were a boxcar on a train and add engine and caboose.
· Art: Making train whistles- Give each child an empty plastic soda bottle. Have the child decorate the bottle however he/she wishes with stickers, glue and paper, crayons, markers, strings, glitter, etc. To make whistle sound blow across the bottle’s opening and have children blow all at once and pretend to be a train.
· Games: Aboard the Color Train- Cut out many tickets from different color of construction paper and give each child 3 or 4 tickets. Say you are the conductor of Color Train and they can ride the train if they have the ticket that matches the color you choose. Set up chairs or have the children line up to march around the room. Announce, “All Aboard on the Red Train (color of your choice), and have them give you the ticket that match and march around room. Ask each child how many tickets they have left each time. After a minute you announce a new color and you can switch it up by using shapes, letters, and numbers instead of colors. Teacher will play songs about trains, as the children are moving around to make it more active and exciting.
· Social Studies: During discussion time each child will have a chance to talk about their experience creating the whistle and their visit to the museum.
· Creativity- Children will be able to create train cars and whistles and use their imagination to create them however they desire.
· Physical development- Children will improve fine motor skills doing the artwork since they will need to manipulate small objects and utilize scissors, glue, and other materials. Children will get a chance to run around and test balance and coordination by playing the train activities.
· Literacy- Children will learn new vocabulary and concepts on their trip to the transit museum, and will also learn new concepts and words by reading the books. Songs about trains will also be sung and the games will teach them the different color, shapes, letters, numbers.
· Math- Children will learn to identify and short the shapes, colors, numbers, and letters through the activities played.
· Assessment will be done through observations during activity time and conversations children have with one another and the adults during discussion of the trip.