to

NASCAR

 

Boogety! Boogety! Boogety!

Let's Go Racing!

 

 

What a fun unit!!! :)  One person's request at TA turned into a race fest!  So climb into the passenger's seat, strap on your helmet and LET'S GO RACING!!!!!! :)

First let's brainstorm some of the things that might be useful in creating this unit:
pit crew
pit box
caution
checkered flag
caution flag (yellow)
yellow flag
green flag
Boogety, Boogety, Boogety (DW always says this at the start of the race)
DW = Daryl Waltrip
lap
mile
garage
8, 24, 99, 6, 12 (car numbers)
finish line
pace car
race time
stall
out of gas
cut a tire
wreck
in traffic
partner
crew chief
driver
sponsor
points (system for overall winner)
winner
2nd
3rd
4th
tires (they start off with 12 sets, I think.  They cost $1500 a set!)
fuel
milage
spotter (tells when to change lanes)
helmet
fireproof suit
gloves
steering wheel (is removable)

"We want to race the truck!" (UPS)
 
 

 

Use car numbers to teach even, odd.  You could give students cars with the numbers and have them sort them into even and odd stacks.  Or take the two checkered finishing flags and label one with even and one with odd and have them sort the cars onto the correct flag.

 


Use a car number line on a race track around the room to record number of days of the year (100 will be at the finish line with checkered flag or either the last day of school if you don't do 100 Days of School)

 


Use race time and race days to teach time and calendar (most races are on Sunday).  So you can sequence days from one race day to the next.

 


Sequencing numbers - have cars with numbers for students to sequence .. they can line them up at the starting line.

 


Behavior - you could give each their own race car and set them up to move forward a certain distance each day for excellent behavior, graduated on down to not moving at all for poor behavior.  At the end of the week, or the day, see who "wins" by seeing who's at the finish line.

 


Hallway display for beginning of school: "Boogety! Boogety! Boogety! Let's Go Racing Into Kindergarten!"  You can have a racetrack and each child have their own car.  They can decorate their car, add their own number, and if you'd like, take their picture and glue their face into the window as the driver.  For a Room List, have a lineup of all the drivers and their appropriate race car number.  (If you wanted to have this all done ahead, you could supply the names, numbers and cars and then after school starts let them decorate them and add their picture.)

 


Your helper for the day could be your "Crew Chief" and you're the "Driver."

 


Use winners/finishers to practice ordinals

 


Use top 10, top 20, etc. to practice counting groups of 10 as an introduction to counting by 10s.

 


Use pairs of gloves and/or crossed checkered flags to practice counting by 2s.

 


Turn the class into drivers with their own numbers.  Have them design their own car.  Display these to use with helping to teach the numbers and/or make a class Big Book for them to practice independently. 

 


Make a racing line up and/or Big Book with student names and car numbers.  Not only can they be used for teaching numbers, but also for learning letters through their friends' names. 

 


Have a driver of the day and chant and cheer his name and number for letter and number recognition. 

 


Have a game where students match a car with a number, to a helmet with a name, to aid in teaching number and classmates' names.  Have a racing lineup on hand for students to use to help in matching. 

 


Take digital photos of students and have them match class mates' face with their name on a helmet or to a car.

 


Use cars to create matching game for color words. (red car to helmet with word "red")

 


Use cars with two tires missing.  Students put two tires with rhyming pictures on each car.
 


Tony Stewart is the rebel-rouser, so you'll want to name Time Out the Tony Stewart Pit Box

 


 

Environmental Print Book:  Tide, UPS, M&Ms, McDonald's, etc.  Use these slogans to make environmental print Big Books.
 


 


"Vroom, Chugga, Vroom, Vroom" by Anne Miranda was a big book about car racing that came with our Houghton Mifflin Kdg. Reading series.

 

Twelve Little Race Cars - Scott Pruitt (counting book)

 


Reading Challenge: Cover a bulletin board in black and white checkered fabric and a race track or path. Assign each student a car with a number and let them progress towards the finish line as they complete their assigned reading goals.

Reading and NASCAR Rocks!!

 


 

Art:  Put a sheet of gray paper in a shirt box, add a little bit of black paint "oil" to it and then put in one or two toy cars and let the student roll them through the oil to create a "spin out" design.  Or you can have them just shift the box back and forth and see what kind of design you get without having them actually touch the cars.  You could also have them create a story to go with it.
 

 


Winner's Circle (the playground)
 
Pit Stops could be bathroom breaks, etc.
 
Fuel up at the cafeteria


 
You can use the drivers' names and let the kids count the letters in their name to match to a helmet/car/card etc with the number.
 


Use NASCAR graphics or stickers to create NASCAR Bingo!  You can download Barb's NASCAR Environmental Print Bingo below. (PDF format)  Thanks for sharing, Barb! :)

 

 

 

Your "Pit Crew" can be your helpers for the week.

 

 

From Oriental Trading:  www.orientaltrading.com  Type in race car in the search box.  Make sure you click "show all results" are something similar.  (These ideas were also contributed by Barb.)

 

Race Car Bean Bag Toss: You could keep the numbers as is and get 
addition practice adding up the points or change them to match  
skills you're working on.

Race Car Party Loot Bags: Use as welcome to school bags for teachers 
who give out a little something at Orientation or if you give a treat 
bag when a child has a birthday in your class.

Gummy Race Car Treat Bags:  For sorting and graphing activities.  I 
can make a simple graph worksheet to use with these; sorting page too.  (ooops! sorting mat is below with another activity .... scroll down. ;) )

printable graph for Gummy Race Cars in PDF format

 

*thanks Barb for contributing so much to our page!! :)

 

 

Race Car Emergent Reader: Barb also mentioned that Oriental Trading had "Make a race car stickers."  Another barb online came up with the idea of creating emergent readers with these kinds of stickers.  The pages for this book would go something like this, depending on the stickers you get.

 

Let's Build a Race Car!

 

pg 1) I will need a car body.  (students stick the car body on this page)

pg 2) I will need two wheels.  (students stick two wheels on this page)

pg 3) I will need some tailpipes.

pg 4) I will need some flames!

pg 5) What a cool race car!  (this last page has the whole car put together, so they'll need two sets of everything)

 

If this is cost prohibitive, you might want to create just one or two books on cardstock and have them laminated and add them to your Reading Station after the students are very familiar with the text.  For shared reading you can either create a Big Book or put the sentences on sentence strips to use in the pocketchart.  You can use a set of the stickers to make matching picture cards for each sentence.  The sentence strips and pictures cards can be used for sequencing and matching pictures to text.

 

 

Check out the teacher stores locally and online for NASCAR/racing bulletin board sets, trims, die-cuts, etc.  Also, check out the party sections at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, or similar stores, for stickers, table cloths ( bulletin board covers), favors for game pieces, balloons, etc.

 

 

Buy or make at least one checkered flag to use as a pointer.  You could also have the green flag and the yellow caution flag.

 

 

Addition Card Game: Make a deck of cards with a car icon on each (make sure the car number is easily read).  Print on cardstock and laminate.  Shuffle the deck and place it face down.  Each student playing takes turns in picking up the top two cards off the deck.  Using a sheet of paper, they add the two numbers on the cards.  Whoever has the largest answer wins that round.  Play until all cards are gone.

 

 

Subtraction Card Game: Use the same cards from above, but have them subtract the smaller number from the larger number.  In this game, whoever has the smallest number wins the round.

 

 

Graphing: Who's your favorite driver?  Provide each student a boy cut out and let them decorate it like their favorite driver.  Then let them graph their favorite on a large class graph creating a pictograph.  Afterwards, you may want them to transfer the results to a student graph, creating a bar graph ... or use smiley faces to create another pictograph.

 

 

Check your local Dollar Tree for NASCAR children's books.

 

 

Color Sort: Print the Bingo cards above and this color sorting mat.  Students can sort the cars into the correct color stack on the mat.  Another contribution from ... Barb!  Thanks! :)

printable color sorting mat (pdf format)

 


 

The following contributions were made by Jeanie aka A Diehard Harvick Fan! :)

 

If  you purchase the packages of Racing Trading cards (like baseball trading cards) you can send them to the drivers and MOST will autograph the cards and return them if you send a SASE. 

 

Having students write a letter to the drivers is a great Language Arts project.  I know several of the drivers will also send "hero" cards when they are requested.  Just be aware, the racing season runs from February to November and there is little time for the drivers to be at home between races so if you want something autographed, send it at the first of the
school year and explain to the kids it will be exciting "if" it gets returned that year.  I have heard stories of the more popular drivers (Dale Jr, Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, etc) who are over a year or two behind in signing and returning items that have been sent to them for
autographs.

For some of the older students, it would be fun to follow the racing circuit on a map of the United States.  There is a lot of math that can be done.  How many miles between races?  How many miles total for the season?

To better educate yourself with the drivers and appropriate sponsors, there is a book that came out in February (comes out every year at the start of the season) that might be helpful.  It is the 2005 Press Guide.  This book is basically an oversized magazine that gives statistics on drivers, tracks, cars, etc.  I usually get mine at WalMart and they run about $10 but are full of information, especially for racing rookies.  I have also seen them at Barnes & Nobles  as well as Hastings.

Also for the older students, each track is a different configuration and different length.  Let's say a track is a mile and a half, and the race is a 600 mile race; how many laps do the drivers have to drive to finish the race?   I am sure you get the picture.

Another idea for the older students is to check the driver's points.  Each driver receives so many points for items such as 5 points for leading a race, 5 points for leading the most laps, etc.  The points schedule for NASCAR can be found on Nascar.com.  If each student in class were to draw for drivers or be assigned individual drivers, Monday morning math journals could be checking to see how many points their driver acquired over the weekend.  At the end of the season, the driver with the most points wins the Nextel Cup Championship.  Simple basic math but kinda fun to watch. 
 

This link explains the points system for NASCAR.
http://www.nascar.com/2004/news/headlines/official/09/19/points_chart/index.html
 

If a teacher likes, there are also several fantasy racing sites that students can make estimates as to which driver they would  want on their team and where those drivers will finish in the race on a weekly basis.  Could be a fun thing as a whole class to have their own racing team competition.

Thanks so much Jeanie for sharing your ideas and your knowledge! :)


 

 

 

Racing Shapes (printable)

http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2005F/050902_bp7.pdf

 

NASCAR.com

http://www.nascar.com

 

List of drivers, car numbers, and their sponsors

http://www.nascar.com/drivers/list/cup/dps/

 

Jeff Gordon Racing School

http://www.jeffgordonracingschool.com/default.shtm

 

Lowes Motor Speedway

http://www.lowesmotorspeedway.com/

 

Harvick OnLine ("Young Guns" section)

http://www.kevinharvick.com/kids.htm

 

 

 

Thanks to all the TA members who helped put this page in motion! :)

Boogety! Boogety! Boogety!

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6.18.05

last updated 7.7.08