Transportation
- Gather your materials. You will need some cereal boxes, and smaller boxes ( like mac and cheese, or cracker boxes), scissors, markers, and tape. You will need a box and a half for each building. Don’t forget your recycling truck!
- Start by talking with your child and deciding what to draw, I drew our buildings but if your child wants to , go for it! My son decided on a church, fire station and the aquarium. Make as many or as few buildings as you wish.
- Open up the cereal boxes and draw inside.
- Have your child color the buildings if you drew them.
- While they color, draw some roadway.
- Hand them the road way when they are done with the buildings and let them at it !
- Cut out the buildings and roadway.
- Tape store fronts to the full boxes.
- PLAY!
Song!
My Backyard!
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my backyard,
my backyard ,
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my back yard’s full!
Rocks and trees and butterflies
butterflies,
butterflies,
Rocks and trees and butterflies
Dirt and leaves and bugs!’
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my backyard,
my backyard,
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard ,
my backyard’s full!
” The Whole Green World” by Tony Johnston is a celebration of the Earth and it’s beauty. The text is short enough to hold young children’s attention and the illustrations by Elisa Kleven are bright and so detailed you will fall in love! I think it’s important to teach our children to see the beauty of the Earth, especially when we are teaching them to conserve it!
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“Machines At Work” by Byron Barton is a bold and bright book that is perfect for toddlers who are obsessed with construction vehicles. The text is brief but effective. My son loved this book as an infant and at 2 still enjoys reading it, aw well as counting the workers and trucks on each page.
“The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race” by Stan and Jan Berenstain shouldn’t be overlooked. I really enjoy this book but not as much as my son who has begged for it every day before nap this week. It’s a good story about being persistant and they sneak lots of learning into the rhyming text. Colors, opposites and more can be reinforced by this retelling of the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare.
“School Bus” by Donald Crews is the book for you if your child goes nuts for the big yellow buses! The reader tags along for a day in the life of a school bus from the depot in the morning , to school , across town and back. The book was also helpful when I was teaching the concepts of stop/ go and empty/ full.
“Truck Stuck” by Sallie Wolf was an awesome find. It immediately reminded me of ” One Duck Stuck ” by Phyllis Root and that is not a bad thing at all! The rhyming text is fun and the illustrations made me giggle, especially the Elvis impersonator in a pink Cadillac! My son was so impressed with this book, I was able to negotiate my reluctant eater to finish his lunch if I read it one more time . That speaks volumes!
These simple shape activities have been a favorite of my son for a while now, so it was only fitting to match it up with his other favorite thing- a garbage truck. I don’t know about your child but my son is nuts about these wonders of public sanitation. Luckily if we sleep in on garbage day there are hundreds of garbage truck videos on youtube. Did you know that garbage trucks in Japan play music, I know because I have seen them on youtube, many many times!
- Gather your materials. You will need some plain construction paper or cardboard ( such as a cereal box) , some green markers or paint, some black and brown construction paper, scissors and glue.
- Draw one large square, one small square and an obtuse triangle on your cardboard.
- Have your child color or paint the shapes green, point out the shapes and label them for your child. We used markers because we were taking a break from paint eating .
. *Side note – all parents get frustrated with their kids at times, if you know your patience isn’t at your all time best, or even good take steps to make the craft or lesson less stressful for everyone involved. My son really wanted to make this before his dad got home so instead of getting frustrated at the paint eating, I offered him markers. It worked well for everyone and we had a peaceful time making the garbage truck. - While they are coloring the shapes, cut out 3 large circles from the black paper.
- Cut out the truck shapes
- Grab the brown piece of construction paper and the glue!
- Add the large square, small one and triangle, so the triangle is only touching at the top.
- The glue for the wheels- you can add the glue as a guide for your child.
- Pop the wheels on and let dry.
Books!
by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha is my favorite garbage truck book , and yes I have read a lot. Mr. Gilly is a hard working garbage man with one task, to clean up Trashy town. The text is so melodic I find myself singing while reading ” Dump it in, Smash it down, drive around the trashy town” . It’s not all trashy time for Mr. Gilly though, after a hard days work cleaning up Trashy town he gets into his bubble bath ! My son loves that this big garbage collector has a bath just like him. Super sweet and colorful book that explains garbage collection is a nice way.
” I Stink” by Kate and Jim McMullen was the bain of my existence in my Pre-K class, the kids loved this book and I really liked most of it, but there are some gross things in it like puppy poo, dirty diapers and kitty litter but we put all those things in the garbage so they are totally appropriate. Just know that they will also get a group of 4 and 5 year olds giggling and repeating the words for days on end. Overall though the book is effective and I own a well read copy. The garbage truck is sarcastic and rough, and the alphabet of garbage is creative.
“I Am A Garbage Truck” by Ace Landers is my son’s favorite toy right now, he kisses it good night and it’s the first thing he asks for when he gets up in the morning. The book itself is okay, the story is a little disjointed, when my husband read it to him for the first time he looked over at me in my son’s bed and said ” Am I reading this the right way? It seems like I should have started from the last page?” my son didn’t care, he loves the illustrations and the way the book is in the shape of a garbage truck. I like that it covers both garbage and recycling!
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- Gather your materials. You will need 1 full piece of construction paper, some scrap paper, an envelope, markers, glue and scissors.
- Start by drawing a flatbed truck. I practiced first but luckily my son’s pjs had a good model on them for me to copy. You can have your child color the truck if you want, mine was jonesing for the glue so we skipped that step.
- While they color cut the top off the envelope.
- Cut or punch out some small hearts for the truck.
- Cut some larger ones to go in the dumper.
- Next add the glue!
- Glue on the envelope
- Glue the hearts on to decorate!
- Now slip the cargo into the back of the truck!
- Gather your materials. You will need construction paper, a blue marker, scissors and glue.
- Give your child the marker and a piece of construction paper to draw the water and waves.
- While they are drawing the turbulent sea, cut out a semi circle, a long thin rectangle, two triangles and 3 small circles.
- When they are done break out the glue! Add the glue for the boat first.
- Add the semi circle boat.
- Next add the glue for the mast and the rectangle.
- Time to add the triangles
- Dot on three dots of glue for the port holes.
- Add the little circles.
- Sail Away !
“The Seaside Switch” by Kathleen V. Kudlinski is a book packed with information about tides and creatures in the sea. As a child I found nothing more fascinating than a tide pool and all the scurrying crabs and this book captures that. It’s main story is how the tide changes throughout the day and brings with it different animals. The book is too long for most toddlers but my son enjoyed pointing out the animals in the book.
” Busy Boats” by Tony Mitton is a fun little book packed full of good information about boats. The text is short , rhymes and matches the illustrations perfectly. It’s hard to find non fiction books that small ones will sit for and listen to, the cartoon characters in this book will grab and keep your child’s attention , I also like how small the books are, perfect for car rides and longer travel!
