Last week I shared about the book Tap Tap Bang Bang with some follow up activities.  This week is all about cars with the book Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia.  Next week I’ll share about her other book Tip Tip Dig Dig.  I love these books! 

I have used the book Toot Toot Beep Beep in therapy before but I finally created some visuals to pair with this book to share.  I also got the board book version of this book so it is more durable.  Again, I placed pieces of hard Velco in the book and soft Velcro on the back of the pictures so the students can attach them into the book as we read.

The first couple pages have great car pictures and we count all the cars and name the colors of the cars.  On the page which reads “the cars go up and down, in and out, and round and round, all day long”, the students and I pair hand gestures with the page.  We reach our hand up and then down, we put them in and out, and then move our hand around and around as I read that page.  The movement paired with the language is great modeling for the students.  For my verbal students they can try and say some of those words as they make the movements.  I have one of the students in the group find the up and down arrows and attach the picture into the book.

When I read the book I make different hand gestures and car noise for each page.  I try to be really animated and excited so the students will imitate my actions and sounds.  I even had my non-verbal students making some of the noises which pair with the different cars which was amazing.  For example, “beep, beep goes the little red jeep”.  I push my hand like I’m honking a horn and say “beep, beep” for the red jeep.  Then I have the student find the red picture and attach it to the book.

I change the visual field of colors depending on the student.  For some of my lower functioning students I just give them the red picture, say “red”, and have them place it on/by the red jeep.  For other students I might give them a visual field of 2-3 colors and have them select the red color and model “red jeep” as they place the red picture on the jeep.

The students can work on matching all the different colors to the cars in the book.  Lots of great practice for those color concepts.

After we finished the book I had the students make my go to puff paint out of glue, shaving cream, and food coloring to make cars.  This was the perfect craft to work on following directions, sequencing, modeling action verbs, and turn-taking with peers. To make the puff paint you need glue, shaving cream, and food color.  I just make small amounts of paint with each group so the students all get to help pour, mix, and pick different colors for their cars.

I set up the activity by lining up the 3 ingredients and modeling the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd concepts…1st -glue, 2nd-shaving cream, and 3rd-food coloring.  I have the students help me by saying “Ready….Set….Pour!” for the glue as we pour it on a paper plate.

Then the students take turns shaking the shaving cream before we add it to the mix….”shake, shake, shake“.  After you add the shaving cream and glue have the kids pick a color and add a few drops of food coloring to the mixture.

We pass the mixture around and take turns stirring the mixture…”stir, stir, stir“.  I also model “around and around” just like the concept from the book.

Then have each student request a paper plate which has been cut in half to make the car.  Have the students paint on the half paper plate.  They can work on requesting “more paint” each time they need to add more paint to their car.

I also used this activity to model different shape concepts which is why I used a square for the front window, rectangle for the back window, circles for the wheels, and half circle for the head lights.  If you don’t have these foam shapes you can just use pieces of construction paper cut into the different shapes.

Sasha also created some great Vehicle File Folder activities which I used for some of my groups depending on their skill level and goals.  You can use these if you want to extend the vehicle theme for another week or two.  You can read the Toot Toot Beep Beep book again with your students and then complete some of these file folder activities.  These file folder activities would also be great to use at independent work stations as a follow-up to this theme.  So many different skills targeted with this packet of 12 different file folder games.

Also check out Sasha’s Vehicle Bingo Game.  My students love playing this vehicle bingo game.  My students like to use my magnet chips to find all the different vehicles on their board.  Then they get to use the “magic” (magnetic) wand to clean up all their chips when they get a bingo or fill their board depending on how you want to play the game.

If you are interested in the free book visuals click the link – Toot Toot Beep Beep Book Visuals

Sasha’s Vehicle themed materials can be found on TPT with the links –

Vehicle File Folder    

Vehicle Bingo