Summer Book Exchange: Trash Trucks

This summer I participated in a book exchange hosted by The Educator’s Spin on It with 36 other bloggers. The bloggers were paired up according to similarities in their children’s ages. Then the paired bloggers then chose a book and prepare activities to send to each other. It was so fun to pick out a book and come up with activities to go along with that book and then to receive a box in the mail with a book and activities put together by someone else!

Caden and I were paired with Michelle and her 2 kids of Having Fun at Chelle’s House. Michelle and her son Bam Bam picked a great book (his current favorite) and sent us an awesome box full of fun goodies, activities and projects!

All total Michelle and Bam Bam suggested 10 different activities! We had so much fun doing the activities that we chose! This is what was included in our box, except for the completed garbage truck project, the dry erase magnet board which I used for one activity and a little wooden truck which Caden somehow broke before we got to paint it and I didn’t get a chance to replace it. 🙁

The Book- Trash Trucks by Daniel Kirk is a book about monster-like garbage trucks come to life to eat trash. It is written in rhythmic way that is very easy to read. The illustrations are collage creations that are very interesting to look at.

1. Make your own Trash Truck!– I was the most excited to do this project with Caden! Michelle included a large goldfish carton, a small tissue box, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and some lids to build our own garbage truck! Michelle and Bam Bam showed us the really cute trash truck they made, which we used as inspiration. Michelle plans on posting about how to make your own soon. What I did was cover the carton and tissue box with colored paper and used clear packing tape to secure it. I used black electrical tape to cover any gaps in the paper and to add a little interest. I then used my hot glue gun to attach the tissue box to the carton and to attach the wheels. 

Then I handed over the truck to Caden and gave him foam sticker shapes to decorate his garbage truck. He was more interested in putting the stickers in the back of the truck, but he did put a couple stickers on the side of the truck.

Since Caden only decorated one side of the truck, I decided to add the words ‘Garbage Truck’ with foam letter stickers on the other side.

When we were done decorating the garbage truck, Caden immediately started to play with the truck! He loaded up the truck with “trash” and pushed it across the kitchen floor.

And then he took his truck to the living room to play and this happened :(…

But being the creative mama that I am, I came up with a solution to fix the delicate garbage truck! Velcro! It’s a mothers’ duct tape! I simply hot glued the hook tape to the truck and loop tape to the wheels and reattached the wheels to the truck! Problem solved! 🙂 And wouldn’t ya know Caden hasn’t tried to take the wheels off the truck again! ahh… boys. Gotta love ’em. 

Caden has really enjoyed playing with his homemade garbage truck. He loves to fill up the garbage cans with these great pouch caps that Michelle included in our package and dump them into the garbage truck!

These baby food pouch lids are a great and versatile manipulative that can be used for many activities and crafts. I am so glad that Michelle included this “trash” 😉 in our package, because we didn’t have any. Thanks Michelle!

2. Counting Trash Can printables– We didn’t get to play with these, but I really like these cards and I think when Caden is a little older he would like to play this game. This printable that Michelle made (and I hope she shares with you all) is quite versatile as there are many ways to play with the cards.  In the instructions Michelle sent me she says to “Pull a trash can card and put that many pieces into your trash truck… You can also practice counting [by] putting the trash can cards in order.” You can also use the cards to play a matching game by matching the number trash can cards to the card with the correct amount of trash.

And a little more about the cards… Each card is two-sided, the numeral trash can cards have the same number of dots on the back and the pieces of trash cards have the same numeral and number word on the other side. Really cool! Michelle did a great job creating these cards!

3. Trash Can Color Matching printables– Match the colored trash cans to the same colored house. Michelle made another great printable game! And I really hope she shares it with you all! It is the cutest color matching printable game I’ve seen!

Being an active boy Caden only played this game a little bit, but I love it and I hope as he gets a little older that he will be more interested in playing with it.

4. Seek and Find printable– Another fun game to play with the book that Michelle put together is a seek and find game. Michelle made this nice page with pictures of various faces in the book. I don’t think Michelle can share this due to copyright laws, but if you have a color copier/printer at home you can easily make one for your own use.  The book Trash Trucks is illustrated with collage art and includes some recognizable faces that is pretty funny and fun to look for.

5. Printables from Royal Baloo– Michelle also included some great laminated printables from Royal Baloo’s  G is for Garbage Truck free printable pack and the Earth Day free printable pack. Michelle also sent us a big bag of magnetic pompoms to use with the G is for Garbage Truck do-a-dot page. 

Magnetic pompoms are another great manipulative to have as you can do many fun things with them. Thanks Michelle, for sending Caden some more pompoms. We had some, but not this many or this much variety!

Michelle also sent Caden a coloring page, a cut and paste page, a nine piece puzzle and mini book printables from Royal Baloo all laminated and put together. Printables are quick and easy activities, perfect for rainy or hot summer days. Caden did a little coloring and pasting one rainy afternoon. 

Michelle also sent this 10 piece puzzle from Royal Baloo’s G is for Garbage Truck printable pack. One afternoon I added magnets to the back of both puzzles and stuck them on the fridge. When Caden woke up from his nap and saw this activity, he exclaimed “Whoa!” He was very excited to check them out!

Other suggestions by Michelle and Bam Bam to go along with the book:

• Watch Mighty Machines (season 1, episode 7) “At the Garbage Dump” which is available streaming on Netflix. Caden loves this show and is often heard singing the theme song while playing with his trucks.
• Make your own collage. Michelle says ” The pictures in the book are very interesting (and if you look closely some are even pretty funny). Look through some weekly advertisements, sale papers, or old magazines. Cut out things that interest you [and] glue them on some construction paper to make your very own collage.” Just like the pictures in the book.
• Practice sorting paper and plastic into the appropriate recycle bin.
• Play “Earth Day” game on Starfall.com’s free section. Sort the paper, cans, and plastic to clean up the forest so the animals will come back.
• Grab a trash bag and some gloves, then go outside and clean up the neighborhood! Who knows maybe you will start a trend and some neighbors will join you!
• Thank your local garbage men for all their hard work. On trash pick up day, you can leave your garbage men a small gift or card or smile and wave saying thank you from the window!

Thanks to Michelle and Bam Bam of Having Fun at Chelle’s House for the fun book and activities! It was a lot of fun! I really appreciate all the thought and effort that you put into putting this great package together for Caden.

To see what Caden and I sent Michelle, Bam Bam and Butterfly be sure to head on over to her site Having Fun at Chelle’s House!

You will also want to check out what the other 34 bloggers did with their exchange packages! Visit The Educator’s Spin On It for a full list of links to all of our sites.

Did you enjoy this post? Follow Stir the Wonder and Having Fun at Chelle’s House to get in on all the fun we are having this summer!

 

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