Many young children like car toys.  There are so many skills you can work on using cars.  Here are some that your child might enjoy.

Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!

Back and forth car play

Push a car back and forth between you and your child.  Your child may be tempted to throw the car.  Remind your child to put the car on the floor. Keep your words positive, instead of saying “no throwing” tell your child what TO do, “Put the car on the floor.”  You can also work on “Ready, Set, Go!” or “1,2,3, go!”  Once your child is used to the phrase, give them a chance to say the words, you say the first one and wait for your child to say the next one.  If your child is not yet using words you can wait for your child to make a sound or gesture.

Car Number Games

You can count items on the car. You can count the wheels, or the windows on the car.  If you car has buttons, count those! You can line the cars up and count them. You can take a piece of paper or card board and draw lines from one side to the other, far enough apart so that the cars will fit between the lines and put 1 car in each space. This works on 1 to 1 correspondence, which is important in understanding numbers and counting. If your cars have numbers on them you can work on identifying the numbers. It’s okay to identify only numbers 1-9.

Car Color Sorting and Matching

You can sort your cars into color groups.  It’s okay to group shades of colors together or apart, do what works best for you. Count how many are in each group.  If you have more than 1 car of any color hold one up and ask your child to find one that is the same color.  Label the color and try to find other things that are the same color.

Car Art

Use a rectangular cake pan and put paper at the bottom.  Pour a little paint on the paper and have your child drive the car through the paint and make tire tracks on the paper. Be sure to wash all the paint off the tires when you are finished so that you don’t end up with paint all over your house! You can also use aluminum pans instead of cake pans.

Car Garage

If you have a car garage you can practice a variety of vocabulary words.  Put the cars in,out, on top, under, beside, etc.  If you don’t have a car garage you can use a card board box and make one. If your garage has a ramp you can practice up, down, fast and slow.  Push the cars up “slowly” and let them go down “fast”.

Books about Cars

Here I will list some fun books about cars:

For other activities for toddlers check out this post or  this post