Railroad Bridge Over the River Pretend Play

Here’s a fun pretend play experience for little kids that would be perfect for introducing either a river or a train theme. Of course let’s not forget about encouraging fine motor, problem-solving, and engineering skills too! This one will definitely be a favorite and you’re not going to want to miss it!

Hello, hello!

We got our Bubbles, Boats & Floats preschool curriculum kit this week and of course that meant some fun pretend play with the manipulatives that were included in this month’s little yellow school bus box.

The first week of our new theme is Down the River. And ironically the little guy is all too familiar with rivers because we live very near to one.

Actually, we cross the river just about every time that we go shopping and we’ve been boating more times than I can count too.

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One thing that’s always intrigued him is the railroad bridges and there happens to be one of those not too far from here as well.

Because he loves all things water and trains, I thought it would be fun to introduce our new theme with a little railroad bridge over the river pretend play.

This wasn’t something that was in our Teacher Guide for Week 1, but it was the perfect activity to get things rolling (quite literally) with the little guy and to get him interested in what we’re going to be learning about.

I gave him a long piece of aluminum foil and together we brainstormed how we could fold it to create a river that opens into a larger body of water.

At that point, We built our railroad bridge over the river and added a train along with some of the fun duck manipulatives that came in this month’s kit.

And because it’s local to us and we’re not too far from Pittsburgh, we also did some research on the Ohio River, which we learned starts where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet and flows into the Mississippi River.

It’s all kinds of awesome when the stuff that we receive in our preschool curriculum kit sparks imaginative, play-based learning like this. That’s why I love homeschooling. It allows us to follow our interests and make things work for us.

Today’s lesson, while totally not in the Teacher Guide, gave the little guy an important glimpse into our local geography using landmarks that he was already familiar with. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a win in and of itself.

Don’t forget to stop by next week if you’re interested in seeing what we’re up to with our Bubbles, Boats & Floats theme. And if you missed this year’s preschool homeschool space post, you can check it out here.

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