All of our kids have loved playing with cars. Over the years we have built up quite a collection of cars and associated Hot Wheels sets with ramps and tracks. But I find some of the greatest moments of fun and creativity come when the kids use materials from around the house and use their imagination with the cars.
These photos are from a little while ago. Our then 4 year old made use of some planks of wood that were in the house and built himself a ramp. He raced cars down the ramp to see who would win.
He then wanted to bring in the other plank and make it turn a corner. We spent quite a lot of time setting this up and adjusting, moving, tweaking the set up to get it to work. It was actually the preschoolers idea to put something at the end of the first ramp, so it wouldn’t go straight off the edge.
I found an old cereal box and he played some more, adjusting the pieces of his ramps as he went.
This kept him entertained for over an hour. It was great to watch him try something out then work out, see it fail and then figure out why it didn’t work. There were some moments were he would get frustrated when it wasn’t going the way he planned, but he stuck at it and the sense of achievement of his face when he finally got it to work was joyous to see.
This summer holidays I plan to set up more open ended activities for the 5 and nearly 3 year old like:
- Cars and tubing
- Recycled materials and glue gun (see this post on recycled creations for more details)
- Outside – have a mudpie creating session
- Store catalogues, scissors and glue
What open ended activities do your kids enjoy?