Materials
What to do
1. Give the children a five-minute warning for the end of outdoor play. Explain that the "Playground Express" will be pulling up to the station and that everyone will need to climb aboard.
2. After five minutes, blow the train whistle and start chugging around the playground calling, "All aboard."
3. Snake the train around the playground so that everyone has a chance to chug and whistle.
4. If you need to collect materials, allow children who wish to help pick up toys to "unload" from the train. Be sure to circle around and pick them up in a few minutes. (Being a caboose might be an incentive for some children to help their friends clean up.)
-Ann Kelly, Johnstown, PA
Instructions
1. This activity promotes discrimination skills and verbal expression. It is great
to use when children are waiting to go somewhere or for a new activity.
2. Show the children two identical objects or pictures and agree that they are
the same (two red crayons).
3. Then, show them a pair of objects that are different but have something in
common. For example, red and green crayons are both crayons, but are
different colors. Other ideas are a toy dog and cat, a book and newspaper, a
car and motorcycle, a chair and table, and so on.
4. Encourage the children to tell what is similar and different about each pair.
Any logical answer is acceptable.
More to do Games: Ask a child to select two objects from anywhere in the room and see if
the class can tell what is the same and what is different about them. The child
can confer with you, if necessary. The child who answers correctly has the
next turn.
