EYFS: Listen and Play - Down at the station

School Radio > EYFS > Listen and Play > Nursery Rhymes

Presenter Liz Kitchen with songs, rhymes and a story set at the station.

Suggestions for use in the classroom

Listening for individual sounds
Listen all around: country station (careful listening required). Individual sounds: steam train; whistle: train on track.Liz invites the listeners to copy her making railway sounds:

• the sound of the steam
• the whistle
• the sound of the train puffing
• the train on the tracks

Rhyme/song
Down at the station, early in the morning,
See the little puffer trains all in a row.
Here comes the driver to start up the engine:
Puff puff, peep peep, off we go.
Puff puff, peep peep, off we go.
Puff puff, peep peep, off we go.
Chuff chuff, toot toot, off we go.
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, off we go.

Help children join in with the sound effects. This song is repeated at the end of the programme.

Story - King Jolly goes on holiday
Once upon a royal time… If possible, provide an appropriate bag to become King Jolly’s bag, and a bucket/spade, royal suncrown and teddy bear to put in the bag as the story goes along.

Follow-up ideas

• Practise chugging in a line – stopping, starting, speeding up and slowing down (one train guard blows a whistle to stop and gives two blasts to start!)
• Make train pictures, adding on one carriage each
• Make a railway role-play area, with station (ticket office, platform) train (e.g. boxes or chairs) and environmental print (platform signs, posters, tickets).

See the Teachers' Notes (pdf) below for more suggestions.

Play next

Back to all episodes of Listen and Play