Choo-Choo Train

For Things That Go, we made our Dramatic Play center into a train ride. I covered our kitchen set with black butcher paper and painted some wheels and windows on. We had a board that was put together at an angle and covered with black contact paper. We placed that in the front to give it a bit more of a train shape. Then I covered a box and a pringles can to make the smokestack. I cut out smoke shapes in butcher paper, stuffed them with paper, and stapled all around the outside. These were hung above the smoke stack. One of the kids asked what they were and I said it was smoke coming out of the train. He proceeded to tell me that it wasn't coming out of there, so I added a cup painted white to the top. He was so excited and yelled out "Look Ms. Liz, the smoke is coming out of the train."

Here's the other side of our big Choo-Choo. The kids really had fun playing on and around the train. They would roll trains and cars on top of it and liked feeling the crinkly paper.

We wanted to make the train interactive for the kids, so we added our texture board to one side of the front piece and made a "Choo-Choo Chalk Board" on the other side. This was so simple and the kids played with it daily. Since it was already covered in black contact paper, we were all set. So I just used some packing tape and attached some yarn. Then I tied the other end of the yarn to pieces of chalk and wrapped them with strips of packing tape. Make sure it is really secure on there because little hands will definitely be pulling. They will try to take the chalk everywhere else in the room.