10 Transportation Theme Activities Your Preschoolers Will Enjoy Doing
In this Article
Children love learning and playing with new things, and most parents use their natural curiosity to teach them the important skills needed for life, as well as introduce them to concepts about the world and how it works. Things that move are especially delightful for children, so adding a few transportation themed activities to their activities list is a great way to go.
Transportation Activities for Young Children
It’s not just the boys, but girls enjoy playing with things that have wheels as well. The activities are given below can help you to teach them not only about the different modes of transportation, but other skills as well such as counting, problem-solving, vocabulary, recognizing colours and so much more.
1. How Many?
This land transportation activity will help your children with observation, numbers and their vocabulary as it requires them to count and describe what they see.
What You Will Need
- Toy car, truck, bus etc
- Paper
- Pencil
How To Do
- Show your children the toy car and ask them to describe it. Help them out by asking questions. Ask them how many wheels it has, how many lights, how many steering wheels and what colour the car is. Write down everything that your child says on a piece of paper that is labelled “car”
- You can do the same for the bus and truck and discuss what your child has learned
2. Let’s Drive
Your children will learn to follow instructions and have a bit of artsy fun creating their steering wheels. They will learn what “right” and “left” are.
What You Will Need
- Paper plates
- Pencils
- Rulers
How To Do
- Help your children make steering wheels by drawing them onto the paper plates
- Have them line up in front of you and then tell them that you are going to pretend to drive a car and that they need to do as you do
- Now turn your back to them and start your pretend drive
- Turn the car right and left as you go along, making sure to turn your body in the direction you instruct them. They will have to watch and follow
- Teach them “stop” and put your foot down as though you are pressing on the breaks. Include car sounds to make it fun
3. Follow the Road
Your children will work on their hand-eye coordination as well as their fine motor skills and is one of the more simple, but fun transportation activities for kindergarten.
What You Need
- Brown chart paper
- Marker
- Printed and cut out images of different destinations in a town such as houses, a school, fire station, police station, church library etc.
- Glue
- Toy cars, buses, trucks etc
How To Do
- Stick the images and create winding roads leading to all destinations
- Give your children the toy cars and let them drive along the roads
- Ask them to tell you where they are going as they drive along
4. Painting With Vehicles
This transportation arts and crafts for toddlers will help teach your child how to mix colours and provides an important sensory activity.
What You Need
Tempera paint in different colours
- Toy cars and buses with different wheels
- A huge white sheet of paper
- Paper plates to hold the different colours
How To Do
- Cover the surface of a table with the white paper, add some paint into each of the plates and spread them out on the paper
- Remove any chairs that you have on the table so that the children can walk around it
- Have the children dip the cars in the paints and wheel the cars about, making tracks with the different colours
- When the children drive through different colours, they will be delighted to see how the paints change colours
5. Pretend Car Wash
This game can be played as an extension of the previous and will teach the children teamwork.
What You Need
- The dirty toy cars
- Baby shampoo
- Water
- Sponge
- Two buckets
- Towels
How To Do
- Fill the buckets with water and baby shampoo and the other with plain water
- Have one of the children use the soapy water and sponge to scrub the cars clean and then pass it to the child in front of the clean bucket of water
- The next child can towel them dry
6. Make a Boat
You can teach your children about density and all about boats. This is one of the more engaging and experimental water transportation activities for kids.
What You Need
- Modelling clay
- Small buckets
- Water
- Towels
How To Do
- Give the children a ball of clay and then ask them to drop it into the water. They will watch it sink
- Show them how to flatten the clay into the shape of a boat and explain why it needs to be a certain shape.
- You can explain to them all about boats while they try to make their own boats float.
7. Tube Plane
A more fun air transportation activity let the little ones get creative with this one and teach them all about aeroplanes.
What You Need
- Toilet paper rolls
- Poster boards
- Paint
- Scissors
- Fevicol
How To Do
- Cut a small slit in the toilet paper roll for the children
- Have them cut out wings from the poster board and stick it in the slits
- Glue a small tail flap for the plane
- Allow them to decorate the plane how they want and teach them about planes
8. Bath-Time Math
Grab a few toys and practice math, sorting and categorizing in a fun way.
What You Need
- Toy ships, boats, submarines
How To Do
- Ask your child to count how many toys are there in total
- Then have them sort them into different categories of boats, ships and submarines
- Take some away and add some and have them practice their addition and subtraction.
9. Flight Attendant
This transportation dramatic play activity will teach your child about what goes on in an aeroplane and makes snack time more fun.
What You Need
- Chairs
- Juice boxes
- Snacks such as packets of peanuts and chips
How To Do
- Set up the chairs in rows
- Pick out two children to be “flight attendants” and the rest of the kids and family members as passengers
- Have the flight attendants look after the needs of the passengers and hand out drinks and snacks
10. Train Whistle
Teach the kids all about trains while making this fun whistle.
What You Need
- Toilet Paper
- Paint
- Hole punch
- Wax paper
- Rubber band
How To Do
- Have the kids paint the toilet paper role
- Once it is dry, punch a hole in the centre
- Place a circle of wax paper over one end, securing it with a rubber band
- The whistle will make train sounds when blown
Travel is something that most people need to do, whether it is in the city, to another state and even another country. Exposing your child to the different modes of transportation will give them enough general knowledge about transportation in today’s busy and fast-paced world. Besides learning about transportation, your children will also develop other skills that they will need in life such as motor and creative skills.
