Little Blue Truck Read & Play Activity

If you’ve been around the blog very long, then you know I have a pension for activities based on books! I recently wrote a guest post for Happily Ever Mom featuring a book sorting activity on Little Blue Truck (Do you know the book? It is a well loved classic!) However, my boys weren’t quite done with their love of the book, so I extended it once again with this Read and Play Activity!

 Supplies

We recommend using toys you already have around the house, but here is a list of what we used for reference:

• Little Blue Truck Book
• Green and black felt
• Pinto beans
• Toy dump truck
• Little blue truck
• Safari Ltd. good luck mini animals

The set-up here was simple- I just set out the materials in a way to encourage play based on the story in the book (by the way, do you recognize those felt pieces? They are being reused from our Go Dog Go! Activity) 

I just love the lesson in the book to be friendly and kind to those that we pass by each day. The dump truck in the story was in too much of a rush to stop and say hello to the animals he passed by, but Little Blue always had time to say “beep beep!” as he went along his merry way! As my son played, he of course had to make the “beep beep!” while he drove around the play scene! In his version of the story, the dump truck was a “good helper” by giving the farm animals a ride!

Eventually, though, the dump truck did get stuck and he called on the trusty help of the little blue truck and the frog!

What did we learn through this activity?

While this may seem like nothing more than child’s play, there’s actually a lot of learning that can take place here!

• Parents/teachers can evaluate a child’s understanding of the story by watching the reenact scenes from the book. Are they remember the beginning, middle, and end sequences of the story? Is their story play linear and easy to follow?
• While playing together, parents can teach/reinforce the sounds that farm animals make.
• Role play how to treat others with kindness and respect (this book is perfect for opening up that discussion!)
• Start a foundation for learning how to make text-to-self and text-to-world connections.
• Encourage imaginative and story telling play!

Turn this into a sensory activity like Laura from Sunny Day Family did for her son!

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