Use arts and crafts activities to teach preschoolers about different types of transportation. Students can explore the tracks made by different modes of transportation and create one-of-a-kind works of art by running the tires and wheels of toy cars, trains and trucks through paint and rolling them onto paper. Offer children transportation-themed coloring pages and encourage them to use crayons to color the pictures. Children can create their own renditions of different types of vehicles with various art materials. Offer kids construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, crayons and any other type of material you think is appropriate and prompt them to use the materials to create an image of any type of vehicle.
Instill an understanding of transportation and foster literacy skills using books about transportation. Fill your classroom library with transportation-themed children's books. Books to consider include "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" by Richard Scarry, "Big Book of Transportation" by Caroline Bingham and "We All Go Traveling" by Sheena Roberts and Siobhan Bell. Children can look through the books and also listen as you read them aloud to your class. Ask questions that relate to transportation before, during and after reading the books.
Games not only entertain children, but they also help to present important information in a meaningful way. Create games that relate to transportation for your students to play. Pretend you are a mode of transportation and have children guess what vehicle you are. Provide kids with clues about different types of vehicles and have them guess the vehicle you are describing. Place a picture of a vehicle behind a book or a piece of paper and slowly push the image up to reveal it; kids must try to guess what the image is before you reveal the entire thing.
Kids often relate to music, and using transportation-themed songs can help to teach them about the topic. Print the lyrics to different transportation songs on a piece of chart paper. Sing a few verses yourself while pointing to each of the words in the song and then invite students to sing along. Examples of songs to use include "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." For more examples of songs, please see the resources section.