Book A Trip for 3-5 year olds

BookSpring recommends families help young children to imagine the world of air travel.  Planes fly overhead all the time.  What would it be like to be on them?  What would you see outside if you were inside?  Where would you want to go?  Why would you be going?

Where are the places that you’d like to go to?  What cities, states, or countries?  Books are a great way to learn about different places in the United States and around the world.

This week is a time to read and dream about flying somewhere far away.

Read Together at Home

Let’s Fly:

  • Do you wish you could fly? If you could, where would you go? What would you do?
  • Can you think of 10 animals that cannot fly? What about 10 animals that can fly?

Billy’s Dream:

  • If you could fly like Billy, what would you? What would you see?

Viaje en tren

  • En que viajan Sonu y Monu?
  • ¿Que miran por la ventana?

Vamos a volar

  • ¿Desearías poder volar? Si pudieras, ¿adónde irías? ¿Qué harías tú?
  • ¿Puedes pensar en 10 animales que no pueden volar? ¿Qué tal 10 animales que pueden volar?

Things to do Together

Learn more with our partner Austin PBS: Watch the Going on an Airplane video

It’s so easy to pretend you’re on an airplane with your child!  Here’s what to do:

  1. Set up some chairs in a row.  Make some paper boarding passes.
  2. Act like a flight attendant or pilot, and welcome them on the plane and take their passes.
  3. Have them sit down and fasten their imaginary seat belts.
  4. Speak loudly as if you were on an intercom, and tell them you’re taking off.
  5. Move your body backward as you’re taking off.  Turn left and right!
  6. Then, start describing what they see out the window.  Are you going over to a city?  A mountain?  The desert?  The ocean?  Take your kids where they want to go!
  7. When you land, wish them a happy vacation and hope they’ll fly again with you.

Afterward, talk about what you liked about the game and where you might want to go next!

Ways to Move Together

If you have some chalk at home and outdoor space – draw clouds (or let your child draw them) and then write numbers in them. You can use the same number in multiple clouds. Encourage your child to pretend that they are an airplane, flying through the clouds by jumping into the cloud with the number you call. Or you could let them tell you the number as they jump into that cloud—a great way to work on number recognition.

Share Together

At the end of the week, reflect on what you read and what you did.

  • Do you know more about someplace far away from you?
  • Did you see any planes and wonder where they were going?
  • What other kinds of transportation would you like to try? Trains? Boats?

Share with BookSpring!

How did this activity go for your family?  Please share your photos and stories with everyone by emailing them to weeklythemes@bookspring.org, or sharing them with us on FacebookTwitter, or Instagram with @bookspringatx and #ReadTogether. 

More Ideas To Build Young Readers

Come back each Sunday for new Weekly Themes from BookSpring. Meanwhile, keep reading for more parent tips and recommendations!

Additional Extension Activities:

If you have craft sticks, wooden pegs, and some glue, you can create airplanes:

http://preschoolpowolpackets.blogspot.com/2013/06/craft-stick-airplane.html

They can also be made with a cardboard roll and popsicle sticks:

https://www.learning4kids.net/2014/10/30/simple-aeroplane-craft/

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BookSpring Weekly Themes are released for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.  You are free to use and share this for personal and educational purposes.

Book A Trip for 3-5 year olds
Weekly Themes 25 Book a Trip 3-5 years
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