Transportation School Activities
Transportation is a topic that is everywhere; from kindergarten classrooms to city planning meetings, you can't avoid talking about transportation. Create a unit for your classroom involving a study of how people get from place to place. Young children will want to learn about the different types of vehicles and modes of getting places, while older students will be interested in learning the details of the machinery and the complexity of a public transportation system.
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Train Craft
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Talk with students about the many different types of trains. Introduce children to the idea of train transportation and have children tell about their experiences with trains. Then make a train craft out of candy. Give each child a roll of Lifesavers or similarly tube-shaped candy. Have the children dip four butterscotch candies or other round hard candies into glue and press them to the sides of the Lifesaver roll for the wheels. Then have them glue a square candy, such as a caramel to the top of the train and glue a Hershey's kiss onto the caramel for a smoke stack.
Class Transportation Book
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Include alternative forms of transportation in your lessons. Show a PowerPoint or other presentation outlining many different types of travel and vehicles. Assign students to research one mode of transportation, from camels to rickshaws to bullet trains. Older children can choose their own; younger children may need to be assigned a topic or do the assignment as a group. Have students write a summary of its history and draw a picture of it. Collect all of the reports and compile them into a classroom transportation book. Tailor this assignment to suit the abilities of your students.
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Field Trips
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Contact your local bus or train depot to ask about touring the facilities. Take students to a place where they can see transportation in action. This could be a train or car museum if you have one in your area; prepare students by providing them with background information about the museum you will visit. You could also take students to a tour of a train or bus depot to explore how the system works, how the equipment works and what kinds of transportation careers exist. To get to your destination, take the public transit system in your area.
English Language Learners
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Give students the vocabulary they will need to take a bus, train or plane. Students who are learning English as a second language will need to learn the names of the different modes of transportation, but they may also need to practice skills such as how to ask for directions or buy a bus ticket. Set up role-play situations in your classroom so students can ask for help getting places and practice giving and following directions. Provide them with vocabulary lists of useful words including the names of vehicles and their parts, directional words and words such as train station, express, cargo, airport or ticket, which they might need to navigate public transportation.
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References
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