PBS Teachers™
Transportation Theme: Trains
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View:
Reading Rainbow - "Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express"
This is a true story of 15-year-old Kate who bravely rushed out into a storm to save two men, as well as prevent hundreds of other lives from being lost. LeVar explores Amtrak's Coast Starlight train and sees how trains are maintained at the train yard before boarding the Coast Starlight to travel along the California coastline. Viewers tour the engineer's cab, find out what an engineer does, and watch film clips of early trains.
Caillou - "The World Around Me: All Aboard!"
After finding a photograph of a four-year-old Dad with a model train set, Caillou and Dad decide to look for it in Grandpa's basement. After a while, they finally find it and set it up to test it out. Caillou is having a great time. Grandpa, Dad and Caillou all love toy trains. Grandma captures the moment in a photograph which Caillou decides to put in the photo album beside the old picture of Dad.
Do in Class:
Arthur: Taking a Ride - Role-play a bus or subway ride to explore ticket prices, traffic rules and safety.
Barney: Make a Train - Learn about different kinds of train cars and make a train out of boxes.
Between the Lions: While You Wait - Play games while you wait in line.
Reading Rainbow: Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express - Learn about railroad crossing signs by making a tasty snack.
Play Online:
Barney: Storytime: Barney's Book of Trains - Share an online story about trains.
Barney: Transportation Matching Game - Match the correct type of transportation with each background picture.
Caillou: Train Conductor - Complete patterns in this online interactive game to complete a colorful railroad track in time for the train to enter the station.
Cyberchase: Railroad Repair - Discover the different parts of a train as you help to repair one in this online activity.
Read:
Crossing
By Philip Booth and Bagram Ibatoulline
Published October 2001 by Candlewick Press
"Stop. Look. Listen." so starts Philip Booth's poem. Watch as a steam engine pulls a long line of freight cars through Big Ear. Count the boxcars, gondolas, cattle cars, and tankers. Read the names: Erie and Wabash, B&O, and Santa Fe. Ibatoulline's wonderfully detailed illustrations set the poem in the years when cars had running boards and men and women wore hats.
Prairie Train
By Marsha Wilson Chall and John Thompson
Published August 2003 by HarperCollins
One hundred years ago most long distance land travel was done by train. This picture book tells of a young country girl's adventure aboard the Great Northern on her way to visit her grandmother in the city. Thompson's illustrations capture the grace of rail travel when she eats in the dining car and the perils when the train is halted by drifted snow.
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