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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Trucks always hold a big fascination for your preschool students. Maybe it’s because they see them all the time out on the roads helping to keep our country running, or maybe it’s because so many families own pickup trucks for weekend work. No matter what the reason is, you’re always going to be successful with a transportation theme for preschool. The themed activities can range from having a sandpit with toy construction vehicles in as part of your creative play center to arranging car patterns, or from tracing parking lines to these cute truck wheel shapes clip cards as part of your geometry math rotations. The more activities that you can attach to your transportation theme for preschool, the more engaged your students are going to be.
Why Teach Shape Recognition
Out of all the math work that you need to get through in the preschool classroom, geometry often feels like one of the least important. For many teachers, it’s the topic that gets left until the end of the year and not many tears are shed if they don’t get to it. However, learning about 2D shapes is an important skill for many reasons. Firstly, it teaches students how to classify objects based on particular properties, which extends into science as well as counting different groups of objects. Secondly, it helps them to name the world around them and describe unfamiliar objects with accuracy. Finally, there’s a lot of math skill involved in accurately counting edges as you have to remember where you started and what counts as an edge. These transportation shape activities for preschool provide plenty of practice for all these skills.
Preparing Your Truck Wheel Shapes Clip Cards
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Extension Tasks for Truck Wheel Shapes Clip Cards
The concept behind this matching the 2D shape game is easy for your students to grasp. On each clip card, there is a shape in the window of the truck and three possible truck wheels on the right. Using either a wooden peg or a marker (if you’ve laminated the cards) they mark what they think the right match is and then turn over to check their work. You can extend this task with some of these activities:
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Draw the correct wheel – instead of giving students the option of matching the 2D shape, just give them the image of the truck with the shape in the window. They then have to use their drawing skills to draw the right shape.
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Make the wheels – for a more kinaesthetic approach to the above task, you can have students make the correct shape out of playdough or trace it in shaving foam. It won’t be self-correcting but your students will enjoy getting their hands dirty!
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Make their own clip card – for students who show good mastery of these transportation shape activities for preschool, you can have them create their own versions. You can allow them to vary the vehicle so that it fits with your transportation theme for preschool, and allow them to draw irregular shapes for fun alongside the regular 2D shapes that make up the geometry part of the preschool math curriculum.
This game is also available as digital Boom Cards which can be used with Seesaw, Google Classroom and other distance learning platforms. Grab these Internet task cards here.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Transportation Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on letters, phonics, numbers and more!
Games included:
1) Number Writing Mats – 1 to 20 included; Kids will trace the numbers as well as the number word. The number of vehicle images shown on the mats corresponds to the number so these can also be used for counting.
2) Hot Air Balloon Which Is More Clip Cards – 15 comparison sets for numbers 1 to 10; Place a wooden peg or clothespin on the picture with more hot air balloons.
3) Monster Truck Roll and Graph – Graphing sheet for 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 provided together with a special printable dice; Print out, cut, and form the dice. Ask your child to roll it and graph the result to see which monster truck will win the race.
4) Colorful Convertible Memory Match – 9 color pairs included; Turn over the cards 2 at a time trying to find the matching pair by memory.
5) Number Puzzle Strips – 6 different puzzles included for numbers 1-10 (2 designs), 11-20 (2 designs), counting by 2s up to 20, and counting by 10s up to 100.
6) Alphabet Bus Stop – Match the correct letter wheels to the bus according to the object shown on the beginning sound bus stop sign.
7) Parking Cars Tracing LInes – 12 patterns included for pre-writing practice
8) Train Handwriting Practice – Practice writing upper and lowercase letters
9) Truck Lego Letter Formation – Kids will love building the alphabet using the mats provided
10) Taxi Alphabet Matching – 2-piece puzzles to match up upper and lowercase letters
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Fun Books About Vehicles:
Other Free Vehicle Themed Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Train Number Writing Practice – Kids will be able to practice their number handwriting skills in this train-themed activity that’s super easy to prep for your transportation learning week!
3) Monster Truck Rhyming Wheels – A fun early literacy activity where your child will pair up the monster truck wheels that have rhyming pictures.
4) Vehicle Shadow Matching – Develop visual discrimination with this fun vehicle-themed worksheet.
5) Construction Counting Mat – This construction-themed counting mat can be used with playdough, Legos or any other small manipulatives you have.
6) Truck Wheel Shape Matching – In this printable preschool shapes activity, they’ll work on early geometry as well as fine motor skills.
Educational Tools For Your Classroom:
Other Shape Printables You’ll Love:
1) 2D Shape Ice Cream Cones – In this preschool math center, they will do shape matching between the real-life 2d shapes on the scoops and the labeled cones. It’s the perfect summer math printable!
2) Truck Wheel Shape Matching – Your students will love this fun transportation theme math center that you can use any time of the year!
3) Farm Shape Mats – This printable activity will help your child learn shapes and develop fine motor skills. It can be used with playdough, pom poms, dot markers etc.
4) Dinosaur Shapes Roll and Graph –Preschool dinosaur-themed dice game to help with learning shapes and counting to 5.
5) Alligator Shape Bubble Hunt – Spin the wheel to find out which shape to color in!
Browse My Most Popular Math Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Scarecrow Arrange By Size – 3 different scarecrow-themed image sets that they will arrange from smallest to biggest.
3) Bumblebee Addition Game – Solve the sum and help the bee land on the correct flower!
4) Farm Shapes Mats – Use playdough, pompoms, stickers etc to learn 2D shapes.
5) Popsicle Stick Number Formation – Kids will love forming the numbers 1 to 10 when ice cream and popsicles are involved!
6) Valentines Printable Worksheets Pack – 50 pages of mixed literacy and math activities.
7) Zoo Animals Number Puzzle Strips – Complete these cute puzzles and learn the numbers 1 to 20.
8) Counting Colorful Bugs – This printable book will help kids count to 10 while also learning about color words.
9) Humpty Dumpty Numbers – In this printable game, your students will practice number recognition using 1 dice or simple addition when using 2 dice.
10) Build A Number Santa – Match the number to the correct number word, tally mark and domino to form a Santa Claus
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1-10 Number Building Block Mats: A Fun Back to School Center
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Dinosaur Lunch Alphabet Munch - A Dino Alphabet Match Game for Preschool
