C is for Cars: Themed Activities

C is for Cars.  

Let's begin with car songs, rhymes and books, even movies.  Take the main characters and create fun activities.  For example, make a Lightning McQueen cut-out on a stick along with cut-outs of other friends and retell the story or make up your own stories.  Practice key phrases.  Learn the words to a car song.  Fill in the blank to words in a rhyme.  Supplement a variety of literacy based activities with a number of other activities on the same theme which is of interest to the child.  In this way, reading, writing, listening and speaking skills will develop in the context of play!

Song:  The car's in the garage (tune is the farmer in the dell)  Repeat for each child in the group.

                The car's in the garagex2, honk honk, beep, beep, the car's in the garage.                                     (child's name) has a (colour) car x2. honk honk, beep, beep, the car's in the garage.  

Book and CD:  Driving my tractor down a bumpy road.  Read or sing along. "Cars" series

Songs on YouTube:  Driving in my Car song, Vroom vroom goes the red race car, ABC Vehicles 

Rhyme:  Smooth road, bumpy road. Bounce a child on your lap at different speeds then pretend they will fall into the 'pothole'.  Lyrics:  A smooth road x4, a bumpy road x4, a rough road x4. a hole!

Book with Activities:  That's not my Car! (Usborne book).  Create a cardboard car with the wheels cut out and hold it over different materials around the home, class or garden such as gravel (the wheels are too bumpy), foil (the wheels are too shiny) or a cushion (the wheels are too soft).  Make your own book with a few colouring pages of the same car but with different materials glued on for tires and the description added in (cottonballs-too fluffy, glitter glue -too sparkly, sandpaper-too rough)

Math Ideas:  Count cars. Count wheels.  Name the number on the sports car.

Science Q&A: What makes a race track faster?  How do you reduce friction? Do cars go faster on cardboard, foil, bubble wrap, parchment paper or wood?  Experiment with a variety of surfaces.  How does car design impact its speed?  eg. low to the ground, less curves etc.  

Magnetic Cars:  Drive  cars along baking sheets magically by moving a magnet under the tray.

Sensory Ideas: Drive toy cars in a bin with gravel, sand or rice. Enjoy Playdough with car/transportation accessories. Make circle wheels in the dough.

Art:  Design a race car colouring activity.  Make a lanyard style Pit Crew ID pass.  Make a checkered flag (maybe square sponges in black paint on white background?  or paper weaving?)  Create key rings (beaded, leather) Draw a road on black paper and glue car stickers on the road.  Make a steering wheel from a paper plate.  Utilize recycled materials for car runs such as tubes, folded cardboard and wood.

Fine Motor:  Design a race track. Build a control tower. Use binoculars to see the cars along the track. Trace the letter C. Draw capital and lower case /C/s along a dotted road. Practice car wheel circles.

Matching Activities:  Colour match toy cars to same coloured construction sheets (match colour parking spots in a cardboard garage?).  Match a car key (real or paper) to its shadow match outline.This can be done as a file folder game for repeated use.

Match the car to the logo for the company who made it.  It can be a draw a line between two columns on paper or a 'lift the flap' to confirm the match or a 'pin the car on the logo' game.

Car Bingo:  Use pictures like a steering wheel, tire, flag, stoplight, traffic sign, seatbelt, tow truck, gas station, oil can, yield sign, horn and road to create a Bingo game (or vocabulary flashcards).

TicTacToe:  Put 9 tires (3x3) on a sheet, laminate it and use markers to play the game.  Alternatively, place 9 'tires' on the ground and toss beanbags or coloured rocks to play the game differently.

Gross Motor:  Red light, green light game. Car races (running).

Tire Hopscotch: Tires are best but chalk drawings or hula hoops work too

Create a relay game.  Put on a seatbelt (belt). Go around the pylons.  Jump in and out of a tire, Pick up a horn and honk it.  Reverse back to the start.  Park.

Simon says:  Drive the car, stop at the light, reverse, do a figure 8, go on one wheel, wait in neutral...


Hope you find these ideas as good ways to get started on building literacy skills.  Remember, each activity may not look like a literacy based activity but if it creates connections and gives opportunities for communication, it is one.  We can increase letter recognition, vocabulary, story recall and the ability to provide a description among other things all in the context of spontaneous moments of free play.


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