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Transportation theme for 3 and 4 year olds: a week of activities

A transportation theme lesson plan for 3 and 4 year olds: what a day looks like, then the week's circle time (ten to fifteen minutes, with a child holding the book), books, craft, song, snack, letter and outside time, each with what changes at this age.

A day of the transportation theme with 3 and 4 year olds

  1. Arrival, sign-in, and a job from the helper chart.
  2. Circle (ten to fifteen minutes): calendar, “How did you get here today?”, sing “row, row, row your boat”, then The Red Bus.
  3. Centers, with the craft at one table: box car.
  4. Letter T: trace it once, then hunt for T around the room.
  5. Snack: Banana Sushi, with children pouring and counting.
  6. Outside: red light, green light.
  7. Rest, then a longer read-aloud.

Transportation circle time

  1. Good morning song, then say each name together.
  2. Calendar: the day, the date and the weather.
  3. Ask: “How did you get here today?”
  4. Sing: Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
  5. Read: The Red Bus (level 1).

Threes and fours: ten to fifteen minutes; let a child hold the book.

Transportation theme books

  • The Red Bus (level 1, free on peabody.kids): A red bus and all its riders.
  • Stop, Bus! (level 2, free on peabody.kids): A bus that stops for a dog.
  • The Big Truck (level 2, free on peabody.kids): A big truck stuck in the mud.
  • Go, Snail, Go! (level 3, free on peabody.kids): Fast and slow: a snail and the things that go.

Transportation craft: Box car

You need (4): a shoebox, paper plates (wheels), crayons, tape.

  1. Color the box.
  2. Tape on four plate wheels (a grown-up helps).
  3. Drive it along a tape road on the floor.

With a grown-up. No heat, nothing hot.

Transportation song: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

The words

Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.

Traditional; public domain. From Top 52 nursery rhymes with lyrics.

Transportation snack

Banana Sushi from the Peabody Kitchen: picture steps, allergy swaps and safety lines on the recipe.

Swap: Flour tortillas → corn tortillas; Peanut butter → sunflower seed butter.

Letter T activities

TtT is for truck. Print the two pages (a trace page and a color page).

Threes and fours: trace T and t once, then find T in the room and in the book.

Outside activity: Red light, green light

Cars drive on green, stop on red and go slowly on yellow.

Transportation theme for toddlersTransportation theme for 2 year oldsTransportation theme, all ages

Checked 2026-10-30