Trains

Personal Social and Emotional

Talk to the children about trains. Discuss if they have been on any journeys, maybe they have been on the train at the Wildlife Park or Blenheim Place. Support children’s turn taking by playing a circle game – Pass a train ticket around the circle. When a child is holding the ticket, it is their turn to speak. If they could go on a train that could take them anywhere, where would they like to go? It could be a real or imaginary place.                                                                                          

Communication and Language

Play a listening and attention game with the children. Place several items from ‘The Train Ride’ on a tray. Encourage the children to name each item and then cover the tray with a blanket. Remove one of the objects. Can they say which one has been removed?     Play a ‘Train Journey Sound Effects Game’. What sounds would you hear as the train drives past the farm/airport/zoo?   

Literacy

To encourage attention and recall read the story ‘The Train Ride’.  Using sequencing cards ask the children to put the pictures in order of the animals the little girl on the train sees. Read other stories and look at information books about trains.                         

Physical Development

Lay out a long piece of lining paper with a variety of mark makers and small world trains. Encourage the children to draw the tracks for the trains to travel on. They could also draw some of the things the trains pass on their journey.     Play music and ask the children to move slowly and quickly like trains.

Mathematics

Count the trains and match the number to the quantity.     Use appropriate 2d shapes to create a train.                                                    

Understanding the World

Play the train journey game by setting up a track and set out areas such as farm, zoo, airport, and seaside, push the train round the track and stop at the places. Talk about what things the children can see at these places.                        

Expressive Art and Design

Collage or block print a train.    Role play – make a train station to sell train tickets and use chairs or large boxes to make a train and encourage the children to take turns at being the driver or the ticket collector and choose where they want to go.         

Focused Vocabulary                                                             

Train, engine, driver, carriages, passengers, tickets, station, track, steam train, tunnel, Thomas the Tank Engine