Trucks Storytime

Last week's storytime was all about trucks!  We talked about trucks of all kinds - trailer trucks, dump trucks, fire trucks, and even ice cream trucks!

Here are a few of the books we read:

I Love Trucks by Philemon Sturges
A little boy who loves trucks goes through a long list of different kinds of trucks.  The text is very brief, but I like to open with this story because we get to see lots of different kinds of vehicles pretty quickly.  With so many good truck books to choose from, I actually turned this book into a flannelboard by copying the pictures, laminating them, and sticking a magnet on the back.  I then read the text from the book and stuck the trucks up on my magnet board as we went.  With a cooperative group I also like to give the kids a change to help me place the trucks on the board.

Minerva Louise and the Red Truck by Janet Morgan Stoeke
Minerva Louise is a chicken with a big imagination.  She hitches a ride on her favorite red truck and gets to see all kinds of fun things on the road - including a crew of construction vehicles.

My Truck is Stuck by Kevin Lewis
A dump truck hauling a great big load of bones gets stuck in a pothole.  Can a car get the truck un-stuck?  What about a moving van?  Or a Jeep?  Or a school bus?  And keep a close eye on the illustrations.  What is happening to all of the bones in the truck?

Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman
Follow Mr. Gilly as he collects all of the trash in Trashy Town and puts it in his garbage truck.  This book has great rhythm.  I also like to point out the bold words "Stop" and "No" on each page as we come to them.  It's a good way to smoothly incorporate a little print awareness into the telling of the story.


We also did an action song: 

Hurry, Hurry, Drive the Fire Truck

Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck.

Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck.
Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Hurry, hurry, turn the corner…

Hurry, hurry, climb the ladder…
Hurry, hurry, squirt the water…
Slowly, slowly, back to the station…

Suit actions to words.

And an action rhyme:

Open the Truck Door

Open the truck door, climb inside,

I get to help my mommy drive.

Fasten the seat belt, shut the door,

Start the engine, hear it roar.

Turn the corner, step on the gas,

If the road’s clear then we may pass.

Suit actions to words.

For our craft project, we made trucks using colored paper cut into simple shapes.  We crumpled tissue paper and glued it at the top of the truck's trailer to be the truck's load:

I got the inspiration for this craft project here.  The kids loved crumpling up the tissue paper!  The kids also got some good gluing practice, and as a bonus the project lent itself well to talking about shapes and colors.