Sorting With Vehicles!

Okay, time for a little sorting fun.  Ready?  Let's go!

I'll use my Transportation Set for this little game.  Because it has sorting cards, which we need for this activity...  Here they are (laminated in all their cardstock glory :) ):

(The steering wheel you see in the pictures goes with this hide and seek game, by the way.)

Okay, so what do you do with these sorting cards?  The point is to engage the kids in playful early math and early literacy. No strict rules or right or wrong--just have fun.

One way to use them:  Put the sorting cards that represent the four types of vehicles on your board on the four corners.  Talk with the kids about what each of the cards mean.   Now place each of your vehicles in the center of the board. Ask the kids to help you figure out where to put each vehicle.  You might want them to simply call out where that vehicle goes, or you might call children up to pick a vehicle and “steer” it to the right spot.

Use your “many” and “few” cards in the same way.  Does a particular vehicle carry many or few people?  What do many and few mean?

And then of course you can combine the cards and get them thinking even harder:

Have fun sorting, you little mathematicians!

Hey, by the way...  I bet you'll like my Transportation playlist over on my YouTube channel!  

Go take a look:) 

Motor Vehicle Count Up!

Why yessirree, I do like vehicles :)  And, I love counting--counting up, counting down. It's all early math, and I love to do it in a playful way.  So today, I've got my BIG Transportation set (which you may have seen here), and I'm using it to count UP.

Motor Vehicle Count Up © Wendy Gerbi

Start with an empty board, adding your pieces at the appropriate parts of the rhyme. 

 

No motor vehicles traveling today,

No motor vehicles carrying people on their way.

Along comes a car, hear the engine roar!

Now there’s one motor vehicle, let’s go find some more!

 

(Continue adding any 4 vehicles you want, (make sure you include at least one each that drives, sails or flies) counting up until…)

Five motor vehicles traveling today, 

Five motor vehicles carrying people on their way.

They drop off the passengers, the people wave goodbye.

They’ll be back tomorrow to drive, sail and fly!

Here’s a video for you!

And in case you want to see them up close, here are a couple more photos for you :)

Happy transporting!  Happy counting!  See you next time :)

Transportation Felt Board Fun!

 

Oh, hello vehicles!  Aren't you just the most colorful things...  

I WISH driving down the freeway was this exciting in real life! 

 But hey, that's what felt boards are for, right?

So, kids do tend to love vehicles.  Trains?  Check.  Trucks? Check.  Rockets? Oh, yep.

So let's put them all together in one big set, and have some good old transportation fun, shall we?

I made up a rhyme to go along with them.  Sprinkled transportation vocab and concepts in there.  You just pile your vehicles up in the right order before you start, and then place them on the board as you name them.  Or--pass out the pieces and have the kids bring them up as you name them.  

Oh, I like that interactive way a lot!

Look at all these Vehicles! © Wendy Gerbi

Look at these vehicles that like to go, go, go!

Car, truck, and bus, they drive to and fro.

And here come some more, way up in the sky…

Plane, ‘copter, rocket—they were made to fly.

But wait, there’s more—let’s not forget the boats!

Ship, submarine, and sailboat, they all know how to float.

And finally, our rail friends: train, subway and streetcar.

Look at all these vehicles—they take us near and far!

And you know how much I love the Little Mouse game, so this set has a laminated steering wheel so we can play that game, too!  So many colors and vehicle types to name!  So much learning through play to be done!

Steering wheel, steering wheel, playing hide and seek,

Are you behind the ___________?  Let’s take a peek!

OR

Steering wheel, steering wheel, you steer us everywhere.

Are you behind the _____? Let’s check under there!

Okay, that's probably enough transportation to digest for the day.  I'll be back with more!  I've got sorting cards and more fun ways to use this set...

Central Park custom set

I had a custom order from a lovely organization that needed a Central Park themed felt set for their multi-age playroom.  

We came up with this set, using patterns from some of my already-existing sets.  

Everything is assembled already (wheels on vehicles, eyes on frogs, shells on turtles), and they're double sided to prevent the younger kids from wanting to tear things apart, LOL.  

I should say almost everything is assembled.  The fish aren't attached to the ponds, and the flowers are all separate pieces, ready to be planted by some little fingers :)  

Transportation Set

Thanks to custom requests, I am able to keep up with my best laid plans of frequent Flannel Friday posts!  Well, actually my plans were for every Friday, but I am now just going to have to admit that that isn't going to happen.  But better sometimes than never...  

This set is intended to go along with a Barefoot Book called We All Go Traveling By, but it can be used in lots of ways.  

Conversation starters, for instance:  "I have something hiding in this box that has LOTS of wheels, and can carry lots of people, or freight...  Does anyone have an idea of what it could be?"  "Ok, the next thing in my box has NO wheels, but it can still carry people from place to place...What could it be?"

Do you have other ideas of how to use this set?  Leave them in the comments below!

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And don't forget to check out Flannel Friday's Pinterest Boards and Tumbler Page for a zillion flannel board ideas!

Create a Car (or really, a vehicle :)

Another custom order that's turned into something I'll carry regularly in my shop!  This set is along the same lines as many of my other do-it-yourself sets, and this time the theme is vehicles.  If I were still teaching, I would love to see what kind of crazy combinations the kids would come up with by mixing the various vehicle parts together...  

This set is great for color and number naming and recognition, and could easily be used in a group time by handing out the pieces and letting the kids come up and decide where their piece could go!  You could also ask things like "If you have a red piece that is BIG, come put it on the board...or..If you have an orange piece that is small, come put it on the board."  You could play a color sorting game, and just have them bring their pieces to a designated area of the board, not building anything, or you could decide as a group that you want to build four vehicles--you could build the bases and then ask them to come put the wheels, windows, and other accessories on.  What a great team work project that builds vocabulary at the same time.  I love these sets as both a group time activity and for kids to use on their own...

Discover Flannel Friday--and join in if you like to make flannel boards, too!

Here's the Tumbler Page if you'd like to check it out, and here are the many amazing Pinterest Boards!

And hey--feel free to check out my shop right here:  Flannel Board Fun

The Wheels on the Bus

A  friend has her son enrolled in a new, very small family child care center, and wanted to give the teacher a few flannel board sets to get her collection started.  The Wheels on the Bus was one of her requests, and here are the results:

( I have lots of sets available for sale in my shop:   Check them out :) )

I always like to mix things up, so once I wear out the traditional verses of this song, we sing about animals on the bus, using animals from Old MacDonald or finger puppets. Or sometimes I like to put a few chairs in a row and let the kids come up and pretend to be the various animals or people we are singing about--lots of fun!

Jessica is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Freight Train

Freight Train by Donald Crews has long been a favorite in my classroom. We've had a laminated paper version in my classroom for many years.  It is wonderful, but it's a little too large to work well on our flannel board.  We have it out for the children to use on their own, and they love it.  But I still wanted a felt version for the teacher to use, too.

So, I took those pieces and shrunk them down to use as my pattern.  When the train moves in daylight, we put up the sun; in darkness, we put up the moon.  There's the tunnel, and a city.  I skipped the trestle, because it would take 150 hours to make it...  I used a little fabric paint to put some of the details on the train cars, but tried to keep these pretty simple.  The city is the most detailed piece, and I love it :)

You can no longer buy this set but I've got lots of other goodies here.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Cate at Storytiming.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Town Set

My school is having a Vendor Fair in April, and I've been invited to sell my flannel board sets!  I have no idea what I'm doing in terms of selling, but I did have a thought that the families might be more interested in buying felt play sets than the sets I use as a teacher.  So, I whipped up this little town set the other day, as well as flower and space sets.  

I have plans to make little portable felt boards--flexible and rollable.  I'd better get on that...

Though I wouldn't use these myself in front of a group, I think having sets like this on hand so children can do their own, completely open-ended storytelling would be wonderful in the classroom or library setting.  You could of course use a set that corresponds with your storytime theme, but having random sets available allows the child to lead, which is always a benefit in my opinion.

Check out all my felt goodies in the shop!

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Kim at Literary Commentary!  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.