Join us as we become engineers and create a pulley + scale system to recreate the big scene from our book Little Blue Truck.
BOOK OF THE DAY AND STEAM ACTIVITY
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
This book includes plenty of things that Lane loves: pickups, dump trucks, animals, mud. We’ve been reading this book for three years but this time we took a minute on each page to identify the animals and the noises they make.
Outweigh The Dump
In the story the dump truck gets stuck in a big puddle of mud and it takes Little Blue Truck and all of his friends to unstuck him. Lane and I talked about how the dump truck is much heavier and stronger than Little Blue and each of the animals. But, if you put all of them together, they have much more power as a team. To visualize this, we used some simple engineering to create a pulley and scale system. At one end, our dump truck was stuck in the mud. At the other, an empty cup to put our animals and see how many it would take to outweigh the truck.
Supplies Needed
- hanger
- string
- plastic cup
- dump truck toy
- farm animal toys
- elevated anchor
This project was quick to put together and we made it from objects around the house, including Lane’s toys.
We used a hanger as the base and tied the truck to one end with a long piece of baker’s twine.
On the other end we rigged up the clear plastic cup.
We went outside and found a low shepherd’s hook that we could sink in the dirt and used an empty plant pot to the side where our dump truck would be stuck.
Then Lane placed small animal toys in the cup piece by piece until the weight of all the animals was enough to lift the truck out of the dirt.
SING-A-LONG
The Animals On The Farm by Super Simple Songs
HANDS ON LEARNING AND WORKSHEET
Colors On The Farm and Alphabet Matching
For some color and animal recognition, we used another laminated tool I put together. This one had 10 circles, each with its own color that coordinated to a farm related image. Lane mastered matching each animal or object to their correct color.
Then we used our set of Halloween themed alphabet flashcards and a set of letter magnets for some letter matching, which really seems to be helping Lane memorize his written letters.
As usual, we finished this section with a coloring page. Today’s was special because the image was actually a sketch of a photo my father took of one of Lane’s favorite animals. A duck!
Click here for the free printable coloring page “D Is For Duck”
CRAFT CORNER
Farm Animal Faces
This craft required a little prep work for me but made the activity much more fun for Lane. While I cut the ears, noses and other features for our farm animal faces, Lane practiced cutting with a pair of safety scissors and some construction paper scraps. Once all the parts were prepared, he painted each paper plate the color of an animal. Then we selected our construction paper pieces according to the animal. I would pull all the ear pieces into one group and ask him which ones were the horse’s ears. And then the noses, which one is the chicken’s nose? He glued each piece down but we found that glue wasn’t strong enough for some. So we practiced using a stapler.
Supplies Needed
- paper plates (5 for the faces and extra for paint)
- paint (pink, brown, yellow and white)
- paint brushes
- scissors
- glue sticks
- construction paper (white, black, brown, pink, red, orange and yellow)
- googly eyes
- marker
Start by preparing the construction paper pieces: white egg shell, white cow ears, white chicken wings; black cow spots; brown horse ears, hair and snout; pink pig ears and snout, pink cow snout; red chicken comb; orange chicken beaks and feet; yellow chicken wings.
Have your child paint each paper plate. Ask them some interactive questions while they paint. What color is this animal? Why are some animals (like cows) different colors? What is your favorite animal? What noise does this animal make?
Select parts from the construction paper grouping and glue to each animal. You can divide the pieces into groups based on type of facial feature (ears, noses, hair or spots) and have your child select the right piece for each animal.
Apply googly eyes.
You’re all done. High paw!
Ember + Pine 