Trains, cars, buses, helicopters and even a spaceship occupied the yard at a local nursery as its young students created modes of transport out of cardboard for an educational project.

Aerie’s Adventures Nursery and Preschool ended up with almost 40 beautifully crafted and decorated vehicles, which the children were able to ride around and describe to their friends.

As part of the project, the little ones spent two weeks learning about different types of transport found on land, water and air.

Lynn Ball, a teacher who cofounded the school with Michelle Caesar, the head teacher, said: “We have been teaching them about all of the different forms of transport, that they can be on land, water or air, and that move you from one place to another.

“We challenged families to create any form of transportation and asked if the children could participate in some way such as painting and decorating.

“We gave them an opportunity to put them on the lawn, share them, move them around and tell their friends about the types of vehicle they made.

“This helped to cement what we had been talking about for the last two weeks.”

Children aged 2 to 5 were challenged to help design, build and decorate the creations while learning facts about their choice of transportation.

Throughout the two-week period, they also got to take a ride on the tour “train”, and observe and describe traffic from the roadside.

A planned trip on the ferry had to be cancelled owing to the poor weather conditions.

The children also heard stories about different types of transportation in their classrooms.

Ms Ball added: “A helicopter was designed so that when the child sat inside, they could turn the propellers.

“We had a school bus that looked like a real school bus and there was a steam train that had steam made from cotton wool. We even had a spaceship.

“They really went over and beyond, we are very grateful for the family participation. They had a ball.”

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