Train Concepts: Fast and Slow

Children will pretend to be the Little Engine That Could as they learn the concepts fast and slow.

Children will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of fast and slow

Learn to follow instructions

Learn to move and work as a group.

Coloring Book style pictures of train cars printed on cardstock. They don’t need to be identical. Each child needs one car. The teacher also needs one, colored.

Crayons

Book: the Little Engine That Could or a flannel board version

1. Give the children the train pictures to color.

2. Ask the children to put their trains down while you read the book or tell the story. Encourage them to join you as you say, “I think I can, I think I can.”

3. Use your train to demonstrate how the little engine goes fast or slow. Have the children demonstrate on theirs as well.

4. Invite the children to put their pictures down and come to an open playing area. Have them line up, and then tell them they are all cars in a train. The train will move fast or slow, depending on what the conductor tells them to do. You are the conductor. You can have them place their hands on the waists of the person in front, or simply move without touching.

5. Call out fast or slow and see if the children can move together without crashing into each other. This requires practice, and the ability to monitor what is going on ahead of them.

6. When they’re finished, let them get their own trains and move freely as you call out fast or slow for their trains.

7. Return the children to their seats. Put their names on their trains and make a train on the wall to help them remember the lesson.

No grades in preschool. Observe the children to be certain they understand the concepts taught.