By Edward Lynn
Editor
EAGLE GROVE, Iowa — Students at Eagle Grove Elementary got an up-close look at vehicles big and small during the first-ever “Touch a Tire” event, held Thursday, May 8. The event invited
children to explore an array of impressive machines, including fire trucks, police cruisers, cement mixers, garbage trucks, race cars and other heavy equipment.
Hosted through the Iowa Preschool Program as a family engagement initiative, the event aimed to bring kids and their families together for a fun, hands-on learning experience. Children were not only allowed to get behind the wheel of the parked vehicles but also participated in a scavenger hunt focused on environmental print.
“We wanted to try something new,” said McKristie Willard, principal for PreK through 1st grade. “I’ve seen similar events in other communities, and when we pitched the idea to the preschool team, they thought it was a great idea. We worked as a team to contact people we knew, and the district helped share some of their connections, too.”
The idea evolved from the more commonly known “Touch a Truck” events held around the world. “I just knew we’d have more than trucks,” Willard said, explaining the name change. “So we called it ‘Touch a Tire’ because it better reflected the variety of vehicles we expected—and got.”
Willard explained that family engagement is a key requirement of the Iowa Preschool Program. The goal, she said, was to not only entertain, but educate: “There’s an informational handout on reading environmental print, because that’s the first concept of literacy—being able to read a stop sign or recognize logos like McDonald’s or Fareway, even before you can read the letters.”
Teachers also created an interactive scavenger hunt that had children searching for letters, numbers, and logos on the vehicles. Willard hopes the event will become an annual tradition: “Hopefully it’ll just get bigger and bigger as we go.”
To top off the afternoon, attendees were treated to a hotdog and chips feed, making sure everyone went home satisfied.
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