Make a Train

Suggested Grade Level: Preschool-K
Based on: Barney & Friends #701: "All Aboard!"
Objectives: Children will have fun learning about and making a train.

The children will:

• learn that some trains carry people, and some carry goods
• identify some railroad cars, especially the engine and caboose
• know some train-related careers, especially the engineer and conductor
• learn that trains need tracks to travel

Skills:

• Art
• Problem Solving
• Role-playing

Materials:

• Crayons and markers
• Small boxes (cereal boxes, milk cartons and shoe boxes work well). Each student will need at least three boxes, unless the children are going to work in groups
• String or yarn

Directions:
Show pictures of a real train from a book or magazine. A book suggestion is Freight Train by Donald Crews. Ask questions such as:

• What do you see in these pictures?
• Did you know each "car" on the train has a specific purpose? What do you think these "cars" hold?
• Ask students to tell you about the different cars they see.

Children can make their own train (or work together in a group to make a train-- depending on how many boxes are available). Children can decorate three (or more) boxes to look like cars on a train.

Help children attach boxes to each other by taping string or yarn to each box. Add an extra length of string to pull the "engine."

Children can draw tracks on a large piece of construction paper. They can pull their train on the tracks making train sounds such as, "chugga-chugga," "choo-choo," and "woo- woo!"

Extension:
Count the cars on the train.

Choose one train made by a student or group of students. Use it to count the number of cars. Ask children what color the cars are that they see. Invite students to predict what would be carried in each car.

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