Making our own little town to drive around, something compact to easily fold away, is a perfect companion for one of our favorite books, Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. There is so much to enjoy on every page of that book. My oldest child’s first imaginary friend was “Goldbug,” the little creature who hides out on every page. Although we don’t have a “carrot car” in this little vehicle town, there are plenty of places to go because the roads and vehicles are the focus.
I made our Vehicle Town a magnet play activity. I put some roads together with some houses and buildings into a special little town. It’s two pages, and after laminating they easily fold together. I put these on our magnet board (I also could use my cheap baking sheet I have for just this purpose) and we are set to go.
Then I printed the vehicles on cardstock, glued them to a piece of foam, and cut them out with a straight Ex-acto knife when the glue was dry. Some sturdy tape keeps the magnet in place on the reverse. Although I could easily pull the magnet off and reuse them on a different game, I’m surprised by how well they stay on the foam vehicles while playing! I may just keep them in this set, because it sure is fun!
You could also simply keep the vehicles with the roads without worrying about the magnet board or the magnets: I love how the magnets follow along the road and keep the many vehicles in place!
My preschooler enjoyed being silly by putting the airplane on the roads (instead of the airport) and the boats wanted to go on the roads too. She loves ambulances and fire trucks, so those prompted some fun and noisy minutes of “rescuing” other cars from the fire. I love hearing her little voices as she has the vehicles “talk” to one another. In all, I’d say it was a success!
Even my older kids don’t mind playing with an imagination toy like this. They insisted on playing for a little while before breakfast. Sounds good to me! I love how the pages simply folded together into my storage envelope.
We love Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry because it is simply silly. With “pickle cars” and “toothbrush cars” and so forth, it is a perfect preschool-level book due to its silliness.
As a free download for you, I’ve also created a “Does It Go?” sort page with silly things like a banana, a window, and a bucket in addition to a car, a bike, and a little red wagon. Now my little one can sort out the real versus the not real vehicles after she reads the Cars and Trucks book.
In all, I love our magnet game! I have all sorts of additional ideas for magnet games to create.
Get your copy of the the vehicle sort template by clicking this image below! I’ve included the sort in both color and black and white.
The Vehicle Town Template is available for purchase in my shop!