What Do WHEELS Do All Day?

By April Jones Prince
Illustrated by Giles Laroche
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-56307-4

FROM THE FLAP: Yeah, what do WHEELS do all day? Well they push, race, stroll, fly, whiz, and spin all day long!

Hoop Action (Bodily-Kinesthetic)

April Jones Prince uses twenty-nine different verbs in WHEELS. Explain that verbs are action words. Read through the story and list all of the verbs. Then, take students outside and give each student a hula-hoop. Call out a verb from the story and have children act out the verbs with their hoops.

Parking Garage Math (Logical-Mathematical)

Ask a group of students to use blocks to build parking garages for Matchbox cars. Give each student ten cars. Tell the children various addition and subtraction stories, and have the students visually demonstrate each story with their cars. For example, there were seven cars on the road. Three drove into the garage. How many cars are on the road now? There were two cars on the road, five more cars pulled out of the garage onto the road. How many cars are on the road now?

Shape Art (Visual-Spatial, Intrapersonal)

Giles Laroche used paper collage to create the art for WHEELS. Give students various shapes of various sizes, an 11x18 piece of paper, and glue. Ask them to make a collage out of the various shapes, and have them share about their art afterward.

Transportation Sharing Circle (Intrapersonal)

There are twenty-two modes of transportation in WHEELS. Ask students to bring in a photo or a drawing of them using a mode of transportation. In an opening or closing circle, ask students to explain their picture.

What Do Kids Do In School All Day Classroom Book (Verbal-Linguistic)

Take photos of individual students throughout the day doing various activities: reading, drawing, writing, painting, playing etc. Give each child an 8x11 sheet of paper with the question “What do kids do in school all day?” written on top of the page. Underneath the photo, have a line for the student to write his or her name and another line for the accompanying verb. One sample page might be “Alicia reads.” Collate the pages into a classroom book and send it home for students to read to their families on a rotating basis.

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