I Love Trains! Book

This was the perfect book to introduce our "train" themed story time for pre-schoolers. The sparse text has elements of rhyme and just enough story to hold little one's attention.

The performer began by saying "I love hotdogs", anticipating some in the crowd to correct her by saying "trains!", which did happen in one session. However, in the first session someone in the crowd said, "me too!". So the performer said, "I love airplanes". More agreement from the crowd. Finally we all settled on "trains". (It is fun to play with the audience a bit.)

There is a double page spread where cows and hogs are pictured as freight. Take this opportunity to have the children make 'mooing' and 'oinking' sounds. One page pictures lumber as freight. Have the children show how long the logs are by stretching their arms apart (without bumping their neighbor, of course!). There is a page where the freight is top secret and under wrap. Have them guess what it is. They love this. The last page pictures a red caboose car, providing a perfect segue to singing "Little Red Caboose"!