Road Transport

This week we have been doing a range of activities about road transport. Watch a video about modes of road transportation here.

Listed below, are a range of science, maths, phonics, fine motor, art, gross motor skills, sensory and construction activities.

Activities

Art, Maths and Small World: Creating a Road

During this activity your child will be painting, ordering numbers and placing vehicles on the road to play with.

  1. You will need: Pieces of card that you have already cut out, black paint, white paint or chalk pen, vehicles and people for the road.
  1. First job is to paint all of the pieces of card black and then let them dry.
  2. Next, using white paint or a chalk pen, draw on the road lines.
  3. Write numbers on the back of each road piece (see first photo), for your child to place in the right order. This is an excuse to get some maths involved in there too!
  1. Ask your child to look at the numbers and order them. Ask questions such as what comes after 5? Let’s count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ….. yes, 6. What number comes next?
  2. Now the road is ready to use! Get all of the road vehicles out and some people and have fun!
Exploration: Modes of Road Transport

This is a simple activity to help your child to get enthusiastic about the road vehicles.

  1. You will need: A transport book if you have one, a range of road vehicles.
  2. Display the vehicles and book on a mat, table or the ground and let your child explore.
  3. Ask them about what road vehicles they already know.
  4. Encourage your child to sort the transport – by colour, the number of wheels or the size.
  5. Read the book to your child and relate the book to the toy vehicles you have.
Gross Motor Skills: Traffic Light Movement

This activity is a chance for your child, and you to get active!

  1. You will need: red, orange and green card or paper, lollipop or straws.
  2. Make the traffic lights with your child and write the words ‘stop, jump, run’ on them.
  3. Hold up one of the traffic lights, and your child will run, jump or stop and then change it to another colour and your child will follow that instruction.
  4. Keep changing the colours until you are exhausted!
Maths: Counting Wheels

Children love wheels on vehicles so let’s get counting them!

  1. You will need: A range of road transport with different amounts of wheels, number cards.
  2. Set up the activity like in the photo above.
  3. Ask your child to count the wheels of the vehicle, making sure they use one number name for each wheel.
  4. Once they have counted the wheels they are to place the vehicle on the correct number.
  5. Once they have finished ask them questions: How many cars have 6 wheels? How many cars are there with 4 wheels? If I had one 6 wheels car and one motorbike, how many wheels would there be altogether? This would be a question for an older child.
Sensory: Floury Tracks

Using four as a sensory experience and moving the road transport up and down, looking at the tracks that they make.

  1. You will need: baking trays, flour, road transport.
  2. Place the flour in the baking trays with the vehicles ready and let your child explore.
  3. My daughter loved moving them forwards and backwards and side to side. She enjoyed feeling the texture of the flour in her hands.
  4. She asked if she could add water.
  1. This was the highlight! She loved moving the vehicles around in the water and feeling how slimy the flour had become!
Construction: Card Tunnels

This involves problem solving – thinking about how to make the tunnels and discussion about how to create taller tunnels for larger vehicles.

  1. You will need: different pieces of card, tape and road vehicles.
  2. Cut the card into different sizes so that you can create long and short tunnels.
  3. With your child, work out how to create the tunnels and stick them down with tape.
  4. Will all of the vehicles fit through the tunnels? If not, then why not? Make some taller tunnels so they can fit.
  1. The van would not fit though any of the tunnels so we made one that was just right!
  2. Discuss pushing the vehicles through the longer tunnels so that they come out the other side.
Phonics: Initial Transport Sound

Time for more phonics and listening to the initial sound. If your child is confident with the initial sound then, you can move to listening to the last sound.

  1. You will need: sound cards and road vehicles.
  2. Set up this activity, similar to the photo above.
  3. Ask your child to choose a mode of transport. Bus. What does bus start with? Phonics is all about listening, so over emphasise the ‘b’ sound.
  4. Ask your child to find the ‘b’ and stand on it. My daughter loved standing on the sounds!
  1. Next, they are to place the ‘b’ sound next to the bus.
  2. Repeat with the other road vehicles until they have placed all of the sounds next to the right mode of transport.
Science: Balloon Car

This science activity provided plenty of problem solving opportunities for me too! It explores force and motion. The balloon forces out air which puts the car into motion. When the force slows down and eventually stops, the car will stop moving too. If your car isn’t travelling very far, make it lighter. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to be scientists and try out a range of different materials to make your balloon car.

We made a duplo car to start off with, but it didn’t work because it was too heavy. You need space for the balloon to inflate, which is why it needed the height. Small lego might work.

  1. You will need: Resources to make the car: small lego, a water bottle, a toy car, balloon and elastic band or a hair band.
  2. We used a toy car and a hairband to hold the balloon in place. Here is what we learnt: don’t tie the hair band too tight around the car or you can’t blow the balloon up. Don’t put the hair band too close to the wheels of the car or the car can’t move. Don’t have anything in the way of the balloon or it won’t inflate. We learnt all of this out by trial and error!
  1. Blow up the balloon, and when ready, let it go and watch the car move!
  2. If it doesn’t move very far then choose a lighter car or use less lego pieces.
Maths and Fine Motor: Truck Boxes

This activity involves counting, using one number name for each block. It’s also great for their fine motor skills as they are picking up the blocks and placing them down.

  1. You will need: A picture of a truck, blocks to represent boxes and small number cards. I used numbers that I thought my daughter isn’t very secure with.
  2. Ask your child to choose a number. Number 10. Ask them to count out 10 blocks and place them on the truck. Make sure they are using one number name for each block, don’t count a block twice and stop when they reach 10.
  3. Ask your child to check that they have 10, by touching each block and saying a number name.
  1. Repeat with the other numbers. After a few turns, we decided to make box towers for the truck instead. This caused much amusement!
  2. Ask questions to your child as you do the activity: What number comes after 10? Let’s count to check 1, 2, 3…. What number comes before 10? Let’s count to check 1, 2, 3……Which is the largest number? Which is the smallest number? If I wanted the most amount of boxes, which number would I choose? A lot of these questions would be more suitable for older children, so don’t worry if your child can’t answer them!
Fine Motor: Car Lines

This is such an easy activity to set up and great for those little fingers too! It can also be accessed independently, once you show your child how to do it.

  1. You will need: cars or any type of vehicle, paper with different lines drawn on.
  2. Give your child the paper and cars and ask them to move the car along the lines.
Science: Car Ramps

For this investigation, you are looking at which car will go down the slope the fastest. You will be changing the height of one of the ramps to create a more gentle slope.

  1. You will need: cars, to make some sort of ramp – we cut out an Amazon box. Make two ramps of the same length and size.
  2. Park the cars on the sofa. Place the two ramps next to each other on the sofa.
  3. Your child is in charge of one car and then you will be in charge of the other. Count down from 3 and then both of you let go of your cars (which hopefully should end up on the floor at the same time!)
  4. Lower one of the ramps and repeat the same process, counting down from 3. Discuss why the lowered ramp made the car travel slower. The steeper the ramp, the faster the car will travel.

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