Five Trucks by Brian Floca

Prompts and vocabulary

Prompts

Ask the child questions after the second and third readings of Five Trucks, to start a conversation about the book. You can prompt the child on every page, using the questions below. If the child says something spontaneously about a picture, expand on it and ask him or her to repeat it.

1. Who are these people? (They are truck drivers.)
2. What is the man in front holding? (He is holding earphones.)
3. Do the other truck drivers have earphones? (Four drivers have earphones.) Can you point to them?
4. What is this? (This is a big blue truck.)
5. What does the man have in his hand? (He has a cup of coffee.)
6. What is this? (This is a small blue truck.)
7. Where do these people work? (They work at an airport.)
8. What kind of truck does the woman drive? (She drives a long, straight truck.)
9. What does this truck do? (It can twist and turn.)
10. Can you twist and turn? Show me. (Act this out with your child.)
11. What does this truck do? (It goes up and down.)
12. Can you go up and down? Show me.
13. What goes up and down on this truck? (The gray stairs lift the big red-and-gray box up and down.)
14. How many trucks can you see here? Let's count them together.
15. What is the man doing? (He is pushing a cart onto the airplane.) What is this? (This is a bird, a seagull.)
16. What is happening in this picture? (The truck driver is unloading suitcases from the truck and putting them on a ramp.)
17. Where are the suitcases going? (They are going into the airplane.)
18. What are these wheels attached to? (They are attached to the airplane.)
19. What is this? (This is the front of the airplane.)
20. What is happening in this picture? (The airplane is ready to take off.)
21. What is happening in this picture? (The airplane is taking off.)
22. Who are these people? (They are the passengers on the airplane.)
23. Where is the airplane? (It is in the sky.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, point to the pictures and ask the child to name the object or the action shown. This will help the child learn new words. You can use the words below or you can choose words you think will interest your child. Below are words for every one or two pages of the story.

• truck drivers, earphones, coffee
• truck, wheels, large, heavy
• small truck, running, quick
• long truck, waving
• carts, twisting, turning
• stairs, moving up
• going in one direction
• pushing, seagull
• suitcases, ramp, airplane wing
• airplane door
• wheels
• airplane wheels, pushing
• airplane
• runway
• passengers
• taking off, flying