Ideas for a Preschool Transportation Unit - Preschool Activities Nook

Preschoolers love a transportation theme! Anything to do with vehicles and things that go are always a big hit. This theme is also great for sensory play and lots of STEM activities. Here are some of our favorite ideas for a fun preschool transportation unit.

Plan Your Transportation Unit for Preschool

Transportation Preschool Lesson Plans | Preschool Teacher 101 – This pack will help you organize all your ideas for a fun and educational Transportation unit for your preschoolers. It comes with

1-Page Weekly Lesson Plan Grid with Activity Ideas for Whole Group, Literacy, Math, and Science each day
5 Daily Lesson Plan Sheets with Activity Directions and Materials List
2-Page Center Descriptions
Recommended Book List
10 hands-on printable activities for transportation themed math, literacy, and more.

To build upon these lesson plans, try adding the following Preschool Transportation theme ideas to your unit:

Language and Literacy Activities

Free Transportation Emergent Reader Books | The Measured Mom – These adorable little books are great for your emergent readers to help build vocabulary, concepts of print, and beginning reading skills.

Train Track Word Building | What Can We Do With Paper and Glue? – This is such a genius activity! If you have a set of wooden train tracks, add some sticky dots with letters on them and let your children build words!

Math Activities

Print and Drive Number Rhymes | Preschool Mom – These driving number-mats are a must have for your transportation unit! Not only will your students have fun driving their little cars down the roads the learn correct number formation, but they will really enjoy the cute number rhymes, too.

Numbers Car Wash | Inspired by Family – This is a super fun activity to practice number recognition. Spray the cars with the correct number! How many preschoolers can resist a spray bottle?

Fine Motor Activity

Fill up the Dump Truck | Little Bins for Little Hands – This is a math activity but use tongs or clips to make this a great fine motor activity too. Roll the dice and find out how many rocks to put in the dump truck. Your slightly older children can even do addition and subtraction with this. Fun!

STEM Activity

Exploring Ramps and Friction | Pre-K Pages – try this activity to make a hypothesis and observations about how different surfaces and inclines affect how cars and trucks will move. Lots of thinking and experimenting involved here!

Craft Activities

Transportation Shape Collage | Pocket of Preschool – This is a fantastic open ended transportation craft. Fill up a tray with a variety of paper shapes and let your children design their own vehicles.

License Plate Rubbings | Housing a Forest – I love this! Not only will your children enjoy doing crayon rubbings of the license plates, but there’s something very sensorially appealing about feeling the weight of a real metal license plate from a car. Bonus if you tell the story about the car it came from!

Dramatic Play

Working at the Car Wash | Teaching the Little People – Wouldn’t your children love to wash a real car? If you can’t go out and wash a real car in the parking lot, set up this fun dramatic play center. This is perfect for outdoors.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 7 Days of Play (@7daysofplay)

Sensory Bins

Construction Zone Sensory Bin | Modern Preschool – This is a simple little sensory bin to put together. You just need some stones and little construction trucks and you can let your littles play to their heart’s content.

Muddy Trucks and Car Wash Sensory Play | Busy Toddler – This sensory bin take a little more work and is a lot messier but it is SO MUCH FUN! Your children won’t want to leave this one! Get those construction trucks nice and dirty pushing mud around in bin #1, then give them a wash in frothy bin #2. Mud and soapy water… preschool heaven!