Stoplights, Steam Engines and Flying Machines with Poppins Book Nook

It's time for another month with Poppins Book Nook Book Club! On the last Monday of each month {I know it's late! I will explain later!}, my fellow co-hosts share with you a month of adventures in a theme. This month our theme was "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" (aka. All Things Transportation!). What a great theme and one that we PLENTY of here in our home courtesy of my VERY vehicle minded boys! You are in for a BIG post because we really had fun with books AND crafts!

Stoplights, Steam Engines and Flying Machine Books

I could wax eloquently about the books that we love within the theme of Transportation, so I'm just going to share some NEW books that we enjoyed this month.

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We love Mercer Mayer books. I was tickled to stumble across this early book Me and My Flying Machine, he wrote with his wife. The illustrations are at the same caliber and detailed oriented as all the other Mercer Mayer books. They are fun to explore and find the little quirks that Mayer is notorious for including. This book follows a boy who decides to build a flying machine and he goes into a barn and starts putting things together. We loved watching how his machine changed based on where he decided to travel. 

When we were done, I encouraged Little Britches to draw his OWN flying machine.

He found a page with a flying machine he liked and he used it for inspiration. When he was done sketching, he used his paints to fill in the colors. 

Locomotive by Brian Flava is an absolutely incredible book. This book is stunning in it's illustrations of steam locomotives. The book is a complete history lesson of how railroads were created and stretched across the United States. The words are written with a poetry feel across the pages...

The illustrations are renditions of various landmarks and stations along the journey from east to west coast. I am in the process of getting this book to add to our library because we loved it so much...the boys for the illustrations of the trains and me because of the history and geography throughout.

The Little Steam Engine is a classic story that I just had to include in our study this month. You might be more familiar with this stories other name "The Little Engine that Could". I read this out of our copy of The Book of Virtues by William Bennett.

While I was reading I had Baby Britches on the floor by me and he drew on his paper to match the story.

Here he's adding smoke to "Thomas" who he decided to draw as the steam engine. He liked drawing while I read the story to him.

The Train of States by Peter Sis is another book that we just fell in love with this month. I have already purchased it for our home library. This book is brilliant and not just for it's illustrations, but how it cleverly includes so much geography and history. Every train car on this train represents a different state in the United States. Every car features historical people or places or events  or things that come from the state. Each car is also attached to the train in order of statehood. What a fabulous resource this has been for us since we are currently studying US History and we are learning the states in order...so this just helps us practice.

Here is our state car. You can see that the state flag, motto, tree, flower, etc is all shown. It's not surprising that there is a horse, bluegrass, Abraham Lincoln, Bluegrass Music and Mammoth Caves on our car!

As part of our exploration of automobiles, we enjoyed Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?. We sought out all the forms of transportation in the book. It's such a fun book as Richard Scarry's books tend to be.

Stoplights and Steam Engines Activities

I went onto Pinterest to find some fun activities and found a great printable train craft. 

Little Britches cut out all his own pieces, but I helped Baby Britches with his. He cut out the windows for his cars. They had so much fun painting all their cars and putting them together. Little Britches put an 8 on his engine (his age of course) and told Baby Britches he had to use a 3. Then they each found a their first initial to put on their caboose. When we went to put them on the wall above their desks, Little Britches decided he needed to add a little stoplight. Do you see it up in the top right photo? I am now working on turning these patterns into felt pieces. I just thought they would be GREAT to have as a busy bag, don't you? I have so much random felt that I know I will be able to get this done....eventually!

Our final activity was to make a stoplight...

Materials:

*1 pc 8 1/2"x 11" black cardstock/construction paper (cut in half length wise)

*White Construction paper

*Paper Plate (cut in half)

*Black, Red, Yellow and Green Paint

*Paintbrushes

*Cup or round lid to trace

*Glue

*Scissors

*Words "Stop", "Slow", "Go" (typed or handwritten and cut out)

Directions:

1. Paint each half of the paper plate black. Set aside to dry. 

2. Draw 3 circles on the white construction paper. Paint one circle red, one green and one yellow. Cut out once dry.

3. Take the 4.25" x 11" piece of black construction paper. Glue a half of a plate on the top and a half on the bottom. Glue the 3 painted circles in order (red, yellow, green) in the space between the plate halves. 

4. Glue the words onto each light: Go to Green, Slow to Yellow and Stop to Red

You can add string to the top and hang them if you want!

 

Enter the Giveaway!

Poppins Book Nook Giveaway! Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers a chance to win a brand new storybook or product that ties in with our theme for the month. This month one lucky entrant will win a Fort Magic Kit!  

With Fort Magic you can bring all of the planes, trains, automobiles, and anything else your child can think of from your storybooks to life to interact with, play with, and make reading fun. The possibilities are only limited by your child’s imagination. Jump into a world of books today with Fort Magic! You can read a review of Fort Magic HERE.

The winner must reside within the United States. This giveaway is brought to you by the company Enchanted Homeschooling Mom who is owner and founder of the Poppins Book Nook, in partnership with the Fort Magic. By entering this giveaway you are also acknowledging that you have read and agree to all of the Rafflecopter terms & conditions as well as Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's disclosures found here.  Just enter the Rafflecopter below to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now if you have a moment, check out some of the books and activities that my fellow co-hosts have come up with this month!
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ The Kennedy Adventures ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

If you have a post sharing books or activities with our Transportation theme, please link up so we can check them out!

An InLinkz Link-up