Inside: Setting up a transportation theme in the toddler and preschool classroom is so easy, because there is such a wide variety of activities to try. We added some favorites that our children loved! The transportation theme is one that I could spend weeks on. There seriously are so many fun ideas! We had a car wash in our dramatic play area, a construction zone in our sensory bin, lots of transportation toys and fun matching games to try. In fact, I have included a few free printable transportation activities that you are welcome to download and use with your children. Just scroll down and you will see the links under the related photos.
Setting Up the Transportation Theme
Check out a few of our transportation theme classroom set up videos:
Classroom Video Tour Year #1 Classroom Video Tour Year #2 Classroom Video Tour Year #3
Dramatic Play
In our dramatic play area, we set up a car wash complete with a coffee bar for our customers. We hung banners on the ceiling and had different transportation clothes on our dress up cart.
A cardboard box and a plastic table cloth were our make-believe car wash. We even had tickets to hand out to our customers.
Block Area
Our train table displayed some fun transportation toys, such as: Melissa & Doug Service Station and Drive-Thru Car Wash Melissa & Doug Car Carrier Truck Lakeshore Block Play Garages On the floor we had the Melissa & Doug Round the City Rescue Rug.
Books
I love to display books around the classroom, like this book called Old Tracks, New Tricks. You can see how we use this book here.
We read several books, including Red Truck.
Transportation Theme Table Activities
Red Tow Truck Counting Puzzle You can download the free printables here: Red Truck Counting Cards 1-10
Car Color Matching You can download the free printables here: Car Color Matching Activity
I also created a wheels matching activity after reading the book What Do Wheels Do All Day? I made 2 copies of each page and laminated both. I kept one copy as is, and cut apart the second copy. My preschoolers then matched the separated cards to those on the full pages. You can download the free printables here: Wheels Matching Activity
Another fun activity for our transportation theme was a space rocket magnetic building set. It has a surprise astronaut inside, which thrilled my preschoolers!
Sensory Table
We had a construction zone in our sensory table using kinetic sand and CAT mini machine construction vehicles. By the way, if you haven’t felt kinetic sand yet, you must. It’s amazing! You can read more about this activity here.
Science and Discovery
At our discovery table we had our Mix or Match Vehicles activity. Our preschoolers loved that they could mix a boat with a car!
Art
One of our art activities involved driving different types of transportation vehicles through paint and then onto paper.
We then washed them in our water table with sponges.
More Transportation Ideas Car Props for Circle Time Transportation Playlist on Spotify 30+ of the Best Transportation Theme Ideas
Toddler and Preschool Transportation Lesson Plans
We’ve done the work for you! We now have interactive thematic lesson plans for toddlers (18-35 months) AND preschoolers (3-5 years)! Get ready for fun and learning with unit lesson plans for transportation. Explore a variety of themed hands-on activities! Easy to follow lesson plans include activity modifications and adaptations to meet the needs of all learners. For more information, click on the graphics below:
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