We turned an entire wall of our classroom into the train wall, and covered it in photographs of trains and artwork the children did of trains. It was a gradual progression that we added to every few days, until we had a completed wall that featured multiple projects and so many photographs of trains from around the world.
The vocabulary words that we chose to focus on are long/short, big/small, fast/slow, and colors. To help the children understand these words, we used photographs of Shinkansen for fast trains and old American steam engines to demonstrate slow trains. For each vocabulary word we had multiple visual aids, and we paired them with the written words as well. Although the children can't read yet, they can learn to recognize sight words and so we hope that the two work together to achieve our goals.
Since the kids love Thomas the Train we also used different pictures of him to teach emotions, and then added another train for "angry."
One of the train art projects we did was making a name train. For the name train the children colored a picture of a steam engine, drew a rail road track on a black piece of construction paper, and and then wrote the letters of their name on colored pieces of cut origami that acted as the train cars. Many of the children are just learning to write their own names, and this was good practice in both letter recognition as well as practicing their fine motor skills.
The children in Aurora love playing in brown cardboard boxes, so we decided to collect a few and make them into trains. They were able to rip up different sizes of construction paper as well as origami, and paste them onto the side of the box. We made wheels and a front light and when completed we pretended that they were real trains. The kids loved in and laughed and screamed as I puled the boxes around the room while they sat in them. I had them make train noises or call out, "All aboard!"
Our favorite activity was making an Aurora train, which was Miss. Yuki's idea. The activity focused on dialog, motor skills, and social skills, and was so much fun. The first thing we did was have the children color pictures of train engines and train cars. The next step was arranging all of their colored pictures to make a complete train. We hung the finished train up on the white board, and had the students come up one by one and pull a photograph our of a paper bag. As their pictures were pulled they would tape them onto a seat on the train, and then pull a picture of their classmate. They would have to hand the picture to their friend, say, "here you go," that student would reply, "thank you," and then as they put their own picture up they would say, "I'm on the train." The children were very excited as each of their photos were picked and they got to go up in front of the class and pick their seat on the train. The finished product of the Aurora Train was adorable when finished, and Miss. Yuki and I even added pictures of ourselves when we were in preschool. We hung the train up outside of our classroom so that the students could show their parents and find their friends on the train.
We've also used our free creative time to learn about trains, both through blocks and wooden train sets. The children built their own trains and railroads, and worked with classmates to build rail road tracks with the wooden train sets.
We also introduced the song, "I've been working on the railroad," and let the children make a train and dance around the classroom.
Focusing on trains as the main topic has been very successful for us for multiple reasons. The first being that trains are something all of the children are interested in and passionate about. Until I moved to Japan i had no idea how popular trains are and how fascinated by them kids would be. In America, and especially in California, we don't have a system of transportation by train like Japan does. In San Diego we have one main train that runs along the coast, but it isn't cost or time efficient. Kids play with toy trains, but its not the same obsession that I find here. You can see even at age three how excited the kids are by the Shinkansen trains, and how many of them are eager to tell stories about their experiences on trains. In Japan I am finding that riding trains is a way of life, even from the earliest ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment