Building our very own cars in preschool

First of all, this car idea can be used for any time of the year but because I didn’t have a chance to share this post when I really would have liked to,  I want to take just a second give you a little background information about my next couple of posts.

Here in Indiana, we celebrate the Indianapolis 500 each year at the end of May.  Just like most communities, when there is a special event that is a community wide event, we also like to celebrate the event in our classroom. Of course, for the children, we break down the community event into bite-sized pieces of information that the children can relate to and that lead up to our overall celebration of the community event. In this post and in my next post, I will be sharing some of the ideas we explored which includes the parts of cars, a DIY magnetic race car and track, and our big race day event…

We kicked off our study of cars by reading the book “My Car” by Byron Burton.  This book is an awesome car book. It explores the parts of a car in simple to understand language and illustrations and this book has been a highly requested item to keep on our classroom bookshelf all throughout the school year.  I had one little boy that chose this book pretty much everyday after snack during our library time…

This particular page of the book, shown above, inspired the activity I am sharing with you today.  After reading the book, we came back to this particular page of the book and then I gave each child a set of felt car parts to use for building their own cars…

Each child used the illustration in the book as a way to build their own felt cars and as the children worked, we expanded our vocabulary of words as we used the words “body, engine, wheels, and steering wheel”.  Super fun and easy way to talk about the parts of a car…

I suppose you could say this was a felt puzzle of sorts only without a puzzle board to work on. Instead, the children just used the book as their guide to building their cars…

However, as you can see, our little mechanics interpreted the car manufacturing process in whatever way made sense to them…

A super simple way to explore the parts of a car and a great starting point for what was yet to come in our celebration of the Indianapolis 500 race day…

Available on Amazon

 

Links to Grow on

Car Painting from Teach Preschool

DIY Car Mat from Teach Preschool

Cars and Color Words from Teach Preschool

Car “d” Game from Toddler Approved

DIY Felt Car Mat from My Little Gems

Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

Subscribe to My Newsletter

Latest Blog Posts

P is for Pizza!

While learning about the letter “P” we decided to explore with pizza! Pizza is an all-time favorite food for many preschoolers, and activities involving pizza

Read More »