Here is a worksheet alternative to develop fine motor skills during your Transportation Theme Unit.  In this prewriting activity students make a set of train tracks to play with their toy trains on.  This small group activity works well during a Transportation or Things that Go themed unit.

The instructional goals for this activity is for students to

  • Exhibit fine motor coordination (small muscle).
  • Demonstrate a more precise control needed to use everyday objects like hold a pencil and other writing tools with a mature pincer grasp (thumb to index finger grasp)
  • Begin to count to 20 by ones (Counting & Cardinality)

 

Materials needed: Each student will need a long strip of construction paper, crayons and a toy train

Setup: Cut the construction paper in half.  You will need one half sheet for each student

Directions:

  1. Explain to the students they will be making train tracks to drive their trains on.
  2. Demonstrate on your own paper by taking the crayon and drawing a straight line from one end to the other.
  3. Create another line that runs parallel to the first line you already created.  It should now look like a road.
  4. Finally draw the tracks on the road.
  5. When the students are finished, count the tracks they made on their railroad.
  6. Give the students the toy trains to play. 

 To extend students learning from this activity you might be interested in some transportation themed resources.  Learn more here.