Following our car-loving preschooler's interests, several activities that were related to cars were implemented in the classroom and the playground. One of the activities was a car tunnel.
Theo F., Gavin, Sadie, and Theo E. decorated the surface of the road with green markers before we set up for the play. We used curved wooden blocks, papers, and cracker boxes to make the tunnels. After setting up the tunnels, they picked the cars they liked to drive through the tunnel. Lawrence contributed one of his superheroes for the play by flying it through the tunnel. Eli and Annie tested the tunnel in a different way as they drove their cars on the tunnel not in the tunnel. Keira tried the tunnel out with several different cars. Stefan seemed to be enjoying the tunnel by driving his car at a fast speed.
In the middle of the play, Eric added some wooden blocks to it. He lined up three wooden blocks and put a car beside it and said: “This is a parking lot.” Also, a bumpy road that was made of a cardboard tube and paper added an element of fun for the children.
The children also experimented with the car wash centre in the classroom. They cleaned their cars by spraying, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, wiping, and vacuuming. At every spot, the vocabulary was displayed for them to get familiar with. When the children vacuumed their car, they all mimicked making the sound of a vacuum cleaner. As the words indicated the next step, they learned to follow step by step instructions in the car wash centre.
Inspired by the children’s interests in the car wash centre, another car wash activity, was set up in the playground where they could drive the bikes through it. They washed their cars many times by driving through the car wash machine. They took turns to ride bikes, and some of the children walked through the car wash machine without riding the bikes.
The preschoolers learned it was best when they were going in the same direction so that their cars did not bump into each other in the tunnel of the auto car wash. When the tunnel was broken, they also fixed it together collaboratively demonstrating their problem-solving skills and use of teamwork.
The children explored the different shapes, sizes, materials, and textures, their fine and gross motor would be strengthened as well by grabbing, walking, and riding bikes.
