Transportation and Construction Play Activities 

When learning about various types of transportation vehicles and how they can be used in the community, suggested materials and activities include the following:

Materials:

• Stories or books on transportation and construction that can be discussed include:
  • There’s a Hole in the Road (by Mary Ann Burke published on GenParenting.com)
  • Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site
  • Wheels at Work Construction book
  • Find it: Things That Go
  • Spot the Difference Building Site
• Foam bath vehicles
• Transportation and Construction vehicles (i.e. TOMY TOOMies dump truck)
• Building materials (i.e. Roylco Straw Connectors)
• Vehicle speedways (i.e. Blu Track)

Activities:

1. After reading a story on transportation, ask relevant questions about the book while playing with your children.
2. During bath time children play with different water toys (i.e. foam vehicles and dump truck).
   • When using foam bath vehicles and truck, children can practice sink and float activities and discuss what happens when they push the foam toy to the bottom of the tub and it floats to the top.
   • They can stick the foam backed vehicles on the tiles around the tub and tell a story about how the vehicles provide community services to families.
   • They can create roads with foam pieces and talk about left and right and the directions of north, south, west, and east.
   • Children can stand up and drop various foam pieces into the bath water and watch how high the foam piece or a falling dump truck splashes in the tub. What toy creates the largest splash and why is that happening?
3. Dump trucks can be used to collect and dump toys in the house and outside for digging in the dirt, collecting rocks, weeds, flower petals, and collections.
   • Children can race the dump truck with other vehicles and determine which is faster.
   • Dump trucks can help make roads in the dirt or sand as part of a construction project.
   • Dip dump trucks and other vehicles in paint and then roll across construction paper to make various types of tracks as an art creation. What tracks are thickest? Which are widest?
4. Building materials (i.e. Roylco Straw Connectors) can be used for building projects.
   • Children can create construction sites, garages for various types of vehicles, and houses or play areas.
   • The Roylco Straw Connections can be used to build a pup tent for your child, a house that your child can live in, a fort, a rocket, or types of vehicles.
   • Children can make geometric shapes and build three dimensional structures by using a specific number of connected straws to reinforce the object.
5. Vehicle speedways (i.e. Blu Track)
   • Speedways can be used to race different types of small racing cars.
   • Children can track race results with charts, statistics, and tallying results.
   • Speedways can be modified with loops, slanted raceways, and cars can start from a high point or at ground level. Then the children can race to determine results.

Listed below are two California Common Core Standards relevant to these activities:

• Kindergarten Measurement and Data: Describe and compare measurable attributes by directly comparing two objects with a measurable attribute in common to see which object has “more of” / “less of” the attribute and describe the differences.
• Kindergarten Geometry: Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres by describing objects in the environment using names of shapes. Describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to.