I am constantly looking for activities that are the following:
easy set up and take down
minimal mess
keep the kids occupied with minimal or no help
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner with this Active World Tray I like the call "Vroom Vroom Vroom". I going to keep this blog nice and simple just like the activity! I threw this together in under 10 minutes with Lily's help. We had fun creating the concept together.
Supplies:
active world tray or a large chalk board
chalk or chalk markers
toy cars
toy people
Really you can make this activity as big or as small as you want. I quickly drew a road onto the active world tray. If you don't have one you can use a large chalk board or you can purchase
and use it on your floor. You can use as many toy cars as you want, we just used whatever we had lying around the playroom. The road signs I got from Scholar's Choice. They've been a great addition to our play. I love that they are wooden and are big so its not a choking hazard for Mason. You can add some toy people, animals and so much more. Let your children use their imagination and explore their playroom for items to use while you draw the chalk road out.
Lily and Mason both played with this activity for a good 45 minutes maybe longer. It was a great activity to leave out for a few days and they would come back to it throughout the week. With there being no real mess to it, there wasn't any harm in leaving it out.
I found this activity was particularly good for Lily to start initiating more conversations about road signs and being safe while we are out. We've been talking a lot about holding hands when crossing the street, looking both ways etc. but sometimes I find in the moment it is too much information for children to fully process. By talking to children about road safety off the road, it gives them time to process the information and ask questions. It is also helpful to use play to help children be able to communicate to us in a developmentally appropriate way and feel more comfortable doing so.
I hope you have fun making up your own variation of this activity!
