This semester in my preschool music class, our theme is transportation. I always love returning to this theme every once in a while because it is just so much fun! There are so many great songs and movements and the kids really get into it.
A special part of the class is story time where we lay the story blanket on the ground and all of the kids gather at my feet to hear a story. It wasn’t intentional, but it turned out that all of the Little Blue Truck books by Alice Schertle have made an appearance during this semester.
Originally, I was going to pick a variety of transportation books, but it’s hard to pass up a chance to read the Little Blue Truck books and they fit perfectly into our theme and the seasons. Kids just love Little Blue’s beeping and, inspired my daughter, we touch our nose as if it’s a car horn whenever there is beeping in the story.
(Check out this awesome Little Blue Truck box car my husband made for us!)
We read the same book for about 4 weeks at a time, then we move on to the next book. We started out with Little Blue Truck Leads The Way in September.
There are so many types of transportation represented in the book and the busy city environment in the story is so exciting and engaging.
A few weeks into the semester, I stumbled across the Little Blue Truck’s Halloween book at a store. I’m usually not much of an impulse buyer, but I had to get it to show my 13 favorite little friends during the month of October. This one is a lift-the-flap book. The animals are dressed in halloween costumes and under each flap it shows who is really in the costume. Each page has a predictable text that the kids really enjoyed reciting with me. There’s a great punchline at the end when you get to see what Little Blue dressed as!
Since we were already on a roll with 2 Little Blue truck books, we moved on to the original Little Blue Truck book in November. Our family just loves this story – the rhymes, the characters, the moral, and the illustrations are all so fun and engaging!
Naturally, I had to bring out the Little Blue Truck’s Christmas for December. This is a counting book, where Little Blue is making Christmas tree deliveries. 5 trees are loaded into Little Blue and each page counts down until all of the trees are delivered. The last tree is for Little Blue and the final page of the book shows his decorated tree with real flashing lights. Of course, the kids absolutely love the flashing lights at the end. It is a really fun way to end our story time!
There’s one last Little Blue Truck book, that I want to share – the Beep Along Book. This one was actually our story for the short summer session of music class this past summer. For that session, we were doing an animal theme, so the animal sounds and characters in that book fit right in with our theme. This book is really fun because there is a plush Little Blue Truck that beeps attached to the book. Also, the story can be sung to the same to as “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.
All of these books are favorites for my own children and for my preschool music class. They have so many wonderful educational components and the rhyming, singing style of each story make them perfect for music class.
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