Sammy, the Station Wagon

“Vroom, vroom!”  ‘Sammy, the Station Wagon is a children’s picture book written by Tal Nuriel and Aidar Zlinesheu is the story of an ordinary car that is special and will deal with personal and professional nature.  Sammy is a station wagon who needs to learn the basics of being a car and learning how to learn that being different is just a part of the self.  Sammy does learn what makes him kind of special. 

In writing ‘Sammy, the Station Wagon’ Tal uses alliteration in naming the characters, for example, Johnny, the Jeep, and Chris, the Convertible.  My favorite part of the story was when Sammy’s parents sought help for him for this shows all readers that it is all right to ask for help when we need to with our problems.  We all need a ‘mechanic’ to help us physically and emotionally.  Aidar uses primary colors for the illustrations, which made the pictures move. 

This is an easy reading story that teachers of preschool, kindergarten, and even first grade teachers and elementary counselors/social workers could use to teach about what makes us different yet the same.  Sammy teaches us all how to look at ourselves and accept and not be a showoff in various circumstances that may occur in our lives.  We all have a purpose and as Sammy found his.  

In using this children’s picture book teachers and parents could start discussions about diversity and in the schools the counselors, if not already could start ‘culture groups/friendship groups’.  This could lead to a ‘club’ of similarities and differences that leads us to be culturally sensitive.  This is a children’s picture book that could lead to other activities for a daycare or even a kindergarten classroom. 

Lesson One 

This picture book is perfect for a physical education/health lesson for a daycare/kindergarten classroom.   The teacher will read and show the pictures of this book to the class for the first part of the class lesson, and then the teacher can ask the students which car they would like to be reminding the students about classroom rules, as being as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the other classes.  This would also make a good outside lesson.  You will have a lot of sound effects to this lesson. The game red light/green light could be played, and another version teachers could do would be to follow directions, as in right and left turns along with stop and go.  

 There is also a health lesson to be learned here as well and a question you can ask “What makes care go? (gasoline), so how do we (humans) get going? (We eat a good breakfast.) (What did we eat for breakfast today in the cafeteria or at home, if applicable?)  The students can list all the foods that they have eaten and the teacher can list them on the board or on chart paper.  This can be the health/nutrition lesson and the teacher could ask which food group on the nutrition pyramid the breakfast item would fit.   

‘Sammy, the Station Wagon’ is also a story that could be used as a social living/social studies lesson in this way.  The teacher can ask the question to start a discussion:  Sammy along with his parents pay a visit to another car-what did this car do to help Sammy?  What other jobs do you think was a part of this story?  They visited a car that was a mechanic but was also a ‘counselor’.  The mechanic (counselor) made Sammy feel good about himself. How did he do that? What are some ways that you could make someone feel better about themselves?  What other jobs other than teachers and parents. Are there others?