Transportation Unit and a FREE Bulletin Board Template

It is time for our transportation unit in kindergarten!  

What are different ways of going places? 

We started our investigation by asking this question. We made a really basic KWL chart to record what we already knew about transportation and what questions we have.  Our questions were great! How are cars made? Why do people ride buses? What is the thing called that people fly on that has a parachute and a fan? (I had to look that one up!) and Why do people use horses for travel? I will use those questions to guide what we are learning about over the next couple of weeks. Here is an a example of what our chart looks like.  

Our next big activity will be sorting types of transportation into land travel, water travel, and air travel. We started by handing each student a card with a picture of a form of transportation on it. The students sorted themselves into groups that go together. It took them some time to figure out that they had objects that traveled on land, water, or in the air but once they started getting it the groups came together quickly. 

We did this as our activity piece during morning meeting. Then we put them on an anchor chart to use later in the day. 

The cards can be used later in a center as an additional sorting or writing activity too. I love having real pictures for students to use instead of just clip art.  

The book that we are using from our reading series this week (Reading Street) is Max Takes the Train by Rosemary Wells. I love Max and Ruby! They take me back to when my kids were little and they loved the TV show so this is one of my favorite stories to read to my kindergarten students. We discuss all the different ways that Max travels throughout the book and if his choice of travel really makes sense. Would you take a plane to the ice cream parlor? 

I made a fun activity for this one too. Each student gets a travel card with a clothes pin attached. Name a place in the world (near or far) and they answer with the card how they will get there. With this one I focus on: travel on my own (walk), travel by non-motorized vehicle (bike or skateboard), travel by land (car, train, or bus), travel by air (plane or helicopter), and travel by water (boat or ship).  Modes of transport are the key here. 

After we did this activity together the students went to Writer's Workshop with a prompt (we don't usually do prompts, but this was special) We posed the question, "If I was going to ________, I would take a _________" Their responses were really cute! 

If I was going to my grandma's I would take a car. 

 I provided the students with the sentence stems, but you can see that they didn't all use them. I prefer the inventive spelling that this student used. He is totally independent when it comes to writing! 

If I was going to my friends I would take a scooter.

 On the flip side, this student did use the sentence stems and it supported him enough that he completed the assignment. This is huge for him! If left to his own devices he will sit and destroy the paper rather than writing anything so I was super impressed when he wrote this all on his own! 

If I was going to the library I would take a motorcycle. 

This student is a high flyer but doesn't always elaborate when writing. He is happy to write 3 words for a sentence and get moving on to the next thing. He took a lot of time today and even used bigger words like library and motorcycle. All in all this activity was a good fit for any level of student! 


Another fun book to read about getting places is How Will We Get to the Beach by Brigitte Luciani. In the book Roxanne tries to go to the beach in many different forms of transportation but they are never quite right. I created some retell cards for this one so we can retell the story afterwards. After we do the retell together we will do a cut and glue retell page all together. My students really enjoy those. 

To add in a little STEM fun I bought the book If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen. The illustrations are fantastic and I think students will really love this activity! After reading the book students will plan out a car and then draw it. I have a page ready for a final copy so they can just draw their car but I am thinking I want to let them create the car out of old junk. Am I crazy? I'm thinking yes but I'm still going to give it a try!

The last idea I have to share today I'm probably the most excited about! We have turned our classroom window into a transportation display. Students are creating different vehicles at our Fun Friday craft station and they decide where they go on the board. They are so fun! 

To see the whole unit click HERE to preview it in my TPT store. I created some templates for vehicles to get you started but to be honest I just set out some old crafting paper and let them create on their own. You can get the templates FREE here.  

Transportation will be our theme for the next 6 weeks as we work through Reading Street Unit 5. I will be using their questions to guide that instruction as we move through this unit. Here are a list of books we plan on using during this time. They are all great jumping off points for more questions and inquiries! These are Amazon affiliate links which means if you buy through this link I receive a small amount. Thanks for supporting my blog! 



To top off our unit I also created some literacy stations that have a transportation theme too to replace my Valentine themed stuff that is still hanging out there. February is a weird month because the first 2 weeks are all pink and red and hearts and then the last half is just "Please help me get to spring break" mode. These will help fill the gap.

I focused on digraphs and blends, sights words (40 words introduced in Reading Street for Kindergarten), alphabet recognition, word families and nonsense word fluency. I will add in some hot wheel cars, letter magnets, and other manipulatives to make these as hands on as possible. You can click HERE to see them in my store. 

Wow! That was a lot! We have plenty of activities to use the next 6 weeks or so! Thanks for stopping by today!  

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