And what toddler or preschooler is not always on the go?
Incorporate fine motor practice, gross motor practice, sensory activities, shape and color recognition, and much more with these 55 transportation theme crafts, activities, and snacks.
Red light means stop. So why not stop scrolling through other websites.
Stay here and check these out!
Green light means go, go, go!
Go have fun.
Go try something new.
And go enjoy a tasty treat.
Vroom, vroom! Zoom, zoom!
Fine Motor and Gross Motor Transportation Theme Activities
Fine motor activities and gross motor activities are crucial for little ones to become more independent.
Improve hand eye coordination and get moving with the following two fine motor activities and four gross motor activities.
Thread pipe cleaners to make an egg carton train as seen on Hands On as We Grow. Decorate it and then pull it around the house. Chugga, chugga, choo, choo! (This is also a great project to do when talking about human bodies. The egg carton train looks similar to a human spine!)
Tear paper into pieces and sort the colors to create a shredded paper traffic light like the one on No Time for Flashcards. Not only is this great fine motor practice, but it is also great color recognition practice!
Chug around the house with a DIY box train like the one on Hands On As We Grow. It’s okay if the boxes are all different sizes. You could even play a game and sort them from biggest (for the engine) to smallest (for the caboose). Or biggest for the caboose and smallest for the engine. What works best? Toot toot!
Play a few rounds of red light, green light with a DIY cardboard box car as seen on While He Was Napping. Use some ribbon to create a seatbelt to hold the car in place. Safety first!
Try making steering wheels as seen on Sunlit Pages if creating an entire car seems to daunting for you. Once dry, race around outside (or inside if the weather isn’t cooperating). Beep, beep!
Stay active with these transportation activities shown on Pink Oatmeal. Spin like a helicopter, fly like an airplane, tip like a dump truck, and more! A printable with various activities is available if desired but not mandatory. Can you think of other motions to try?
Try a fizzy foaming car wash as seen on Fun At Home With Kids. Bring on the foamy soap, baking soda, and vinegar (and peppermint extract if desired)! This reminds me of the many science experiments my daughters and I have done together.
Drive through a shaving cream road like the one on Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds. This is a great way to teach kids primary and secondary colors. Red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, and blue and red make purple. Pair this activity with the book Mix It Up! by Herve Tullet to expand on the lesson.
Drive through paint to create a transportation painting as seen on Hands On As We Grow. Will you use tractors, cars, trucks, or something else?
Play with toy boats in a gelatin boat sensory bin shown on Busy Toddler. It might get a little sticky, but it sure looks tasty!
Learn about floating and sinking with an ice boat sensory bin as seen on Learning 4 Kids. You will have to plan this a little ahead of time since it requires freezing water to make ice boats.
Freeze some trains in ice like shown on Play-Trains. What will help free the trains the quickest? Try adding salt, cold water, warm water, or whatever else you can come up with. Experiment and have fun!
Create tracks in mud playdough as shown on The Chaos and the Clutter. Kids can form the mud playdough into ramps, hills, roads, and more.
Harvest a field with a corn transportation sensory bin like the one on The Resourceful Mama. Great for a kid who loves tractors and combines!
Try this split peas tractor sensory bin as seen on Kitchen Floor Crafts. It almost looks like corn in the pictures, but it isn’t.
Expect to find rice in random places throughout your house if you try a rice car sensory bin shown on Dad Progress. Even if you do this outside. Sometimes the messes are worth it, though!
Use this construction zone sensory bin seen on Modern Preschool over and over again. Little ones can practice letter recognition by hauling letters on stones. Pile them up and create words.
Make a blacktop-like road with a black bean car sensory bin like the one on Buggy and Buddy. Yellow straws, cut into pieces, work great as the yellow lines on the roads.
Pretend to fly with a sky sensory bin found on The Chaos and the Clutter. The sky consists of blue noodles with cotton ball clouds.
Play a game with transportation sort sensory bins like the ones on Fantastic Fun and Learning. Land vehicles go into a bin filled with black beans. Air vehicles go into a bin filled with cotton balls. And all water vehicles go into a bin filled with blue water beads.
Transportation Theme Learning Crafts and Activities
Learn colors, shapes, and letters with these fun transportation-themed learning crafts and activities.
Grab some different colored paper to create a color sorting train as seen on Fun Learning for Kids. Then, race around the house and see if you can find objects to match the different colors on the train.
Build a variety of shape trucks like Little Family Fun. A great way to sneak in learning about squares, circles, rectangles, semicircles, and triangles!
Race on a magnetic car track as seen on Meaningful Mama. How well can you stay on the hand drawn track?
Practice observation skills with a truck memory game shown on Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk. If you don’t have a large toy truck to hide items in, then you could hide them under a small towel or other object.
Sort vehicles as shown on My Bored Toddler. You could sort by color, shape, size, type of vehicle, number of wheels, or anything else you can think of.
Try this toilet roll Colored Car Drop Activity and practice color recognition as well as work on find motor skills. If you don't have dot stickers just use markers!
Practice numbers with a counting maze like the one on Hands On As We Grow. This is a great way to practice number recognition. Extend this activity with a simple number line car race to practice adding and subtracting.
Try train shape tracing like I Can Teach My Child to practice shapes. There are two options to try! Tape some shapes on a floor to chug around. Or draw shapes on a piece of paper for little ones to paint with train wheels.
Learn letters and words with a sight words train as seen on Juggling with Kids. I think I can, I think I can . . . sound out the words!
Create roads in a box as shown on Pickle Bums. This is such a creative project to do! What else will your little ones draw inside of the box? You could also use this activity to practice left and right as they drive through their handmade roads.
Transportation Theme Crafts
I love crafts, so I had to make sure to include a section devoted entirely to transportation crafts.
Many of these crafts use simple everyday supplies such as paper, paper plates, popsicle sticks, toilet paper rolls, and cardboard.
Paint a truck track painted truck like the one on Little Family Fun. Try to say that ten times! I love how these trucks are painted using truck tracks.
Decorate a shapes paper plate bus as seen on Honey and Lime. A paper plate, yellow paint, glue, scissors, and black construction paper is all you need. A free template is available if desired.
Paint a sponge painted car like the ones on Buggy and Buddy. The sponges leave a really neat texture across the cars. A template is available if you would like to use one but isn’t necessary.
Practice the letter C with this paper plate car shown on Projects for Preschoolers. Very simple transportation theme alphabet craft!
Use some tissue paper to create a paper plate car like the one on Glued to My Crafts. If you don’t have any tissue paper, shred some construction paper for the same effect.
Race around the house with a popsicle stick car as seen on Glued to My Crafts. You’ll need two jumbo sized popsicle sticks and two mini sized ones for each car you make.
Keep the popsicle sticks out to make this popsicle stick airplane shown on Kid Friendly Things to Do. It even has a propeller!
Use recycled supplies to make this toilet paper roll train shown on Kids Activities Blog. It does require twenty similar-sized lids to create an engine, three train cars, and a caboose. So, get chugging through the milk, water, Gatorade, or whatever other drinks to collect the lids if you don’t have them! Or make sure to save this post under your favorites and come back to it later when you are ready!
Transportation Snacks
All of the movement is sure to work up an appetite.
Traffic lights, boats, cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, and even bicycles make their way into these tasty transportation themed treats.
Yum, yum!
Make edible stop lights as seen on Kids Cooking Activities. All you need are graham crackers, white frosting, and M&Ms (red, yellow, and green). The page is filled with many other transportation-themed snack ideas, too, so make sure to check it out!
Try a healthy fruit traffic light like the one on Raising Whasians. Red strawberries, yellow-ish bananas, and green kiwis make this traffic light complete.
Assemble a fruit kebab traffic light similar to the one on Made for Mums. This one uses oranges for the yellow light. And there is chocolate dip for the fruit kebab!
Create crunchy apple boats as seen on Childhood 101. Puffed rice cereal give these boats their crunch.
Try an apple pretzel cheese boat shown on Preschool Plan It for a simpler version of this transportation theme snack. An apple slice becomes a boat, and the cheese slice and pretzel stick make the sail.
Enjoy an apple grape car like the one on Kidspot Kitchen. Be prepared for these to be raced around a plate!
Decorate a swiss cake roll car like Copper Carla. These would go fast in my house! (It would be a race to who would get one first!)
Make a celery race car like the one on I Can Teach My Child. Smother a piece of celery with peanut butter, top with candies, and add marshmallows for wheels. Yum!
Keep rolling with this dump truck snack shown on The Picky Apple. Is it a sandwich or a dessert? I’m not sure.
Haul some pretzels with these cookie trucks as seen on Handmade Charlotte. They are absolutely adorable! And only require Rolo candies, frosting, wafer cookies, mini chocolate chips, and mini pretzel sticks.
Fly through snack time with a transportation theme banana airplane like the one found on Snails and Puppy Dog Tails. I love the marshmallow clouds that add to the treat!
Take off with a banana airplane propeller as seen on Sprinkle Some Fun. Clementines, bananas, mini candies, and toothpicks are all you need to create this snack.
Enjoy a healthy train like the one on Eating Richly. You can use a banana and almonds for the train, peas for steam, and carrots for a train track. So much fun!
Try a cracker train as shown on Toddler Approved. This one uses graham crackers and vanilla wafers for the train, cheerios for the steam, a piece of candy corn, and some M&Ms.
Assemble some veggie bikes as found on Me And B Make Tea. Can’t forget to add bicycles to the transportation theme! This would be great to do just before or after bike riding. Enjoy!
What will you try first? Let us know in the comments below!
Get outside and really get the kids moving with fun gross motor activities and ideas that are perfect for summer days!
The boys move constantly and are full of a lot of energy. But, for some reason, our hands-on fun has taken a turn to mostly fine motor activities lately.
I’m feeling the need to be outdoors and really move! Summertime is the perfect time to get moving outdoors again.
40+ Gross Motor Activities to Get Your Kids Moving!
Gross motor activities.
I’ve always been a huge fan of ways to get the kids to move! Working on big movements and major muscles with gross motor specific activities is the perfect way to really move and learn.
Gross motor activities are some of my favorites because:
It really wears them out! Number one reason by far!
It’s good for them to learn to move in new ways and build muscles and what not and so on… you know… all the technical learning stuff that they’re doing. I don’t know all the reasons and benefits of using their gross motor skills, but I just know its good to do.
In the end, I know working their big muscles helps them work on the little muscles, which in turn help their fine motor skills.
So to inspire myself, and others, to get the kids moving, I’ve selected a large handful of activities that will help us get them moving and work on those gross motor skills that are really much needed.
Find more ways to move together on HOAWG’s Get the Kids Movingboard on Pinterest.
Super Simple Ways to Gets Kids Moving!
These moving activities are usually perfect for an older toddler. They’re beginning to understand instructions but don’t have the concentration to sit still and actually pay attention for long.
Sometimes, adding a cool material – like newspaper or bubble wrap – makes gross motor play extra fun! Get the kids moving with these creative ideas.
Add an extra element of fun with a friendly challenge. Create an obstacle course or scavenger hunt that invites your kids to get moving!
Sometimes, sticking to the classics is a great way to connect with your kids. Which of these did you enjoy as a child?
I know we’ve discovered a ton of cool and creative gross motor activities that will really get my kids moving! We can’t wait to get outside and play together!
How have you gotten the kids moving with a gross motor activity lately? Share your favorites with us!
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