Cars Movie-Themed Educational Activities and Games for 2 to 5 Year Olds

Let's face it, kids love movies, but it's been proven that they should watch no more than 2 hours of TV a day. So why not combine their love of a movie and activities that will help them learn and grow? Following are suggestions for the movie Cars released in 2006. These activities would also work well for preschool classes and party games for this age group.

Watch the movie

Let your kids watch the show while you prepare the activities for the rest of the day or attend to other responsibilities.

Build your own Roadway

Get out some of your child's toy cars and some blocks. Help your child build a road out the blocks and then have fun driving the cars on the road. If your child really enjoys the building part, offer them empty, clean food containers to use to build towers and empty boxes to make wide roads or bridges. If it is nice outside another option is to get some outside chalk and draw roads on the sidewalk. Your child can add buildings and trees and even people. Then you can drive the toy cars on the chalk roads.

Car Ride

Make tickets out of different colored paper for your child. Have the different color tickets represent different types of "car rides" they can take. For example the blue ticket could be for a piggy back ride, the red ticket could be for a ride outside on a tricycle, wagon or bicycle, the yellow ticket for a ride where you bounce them on your lap, and the orange ticket could be for an actual ride in the car to a favorite park or other place your child enjoys. Ask your child to "turn in" a specific color ticket to get their ride. Encourage them to say the color of the ticket as they give it to you.

Have a Race

Have different types of races with your child, you can run, skip, jump, march and so on depending on your child's age. Another option is to set up an obstacle course. Have your child go under something, over something, around something, hop over something etc. Time them and see how fast they can complete the obstacle course.

Read a Book

Cars are fascinating and there are lots of children's books out there that your child will enjoy on the subject. Read a book with your child. Talk about the pictures, ask them questions about the story or have them pretend to be certain characters or act out certain parts after you have read the story. Following are a few book suggestions:

• Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks from A to Z (A Chunky Book(R)) by Richard Scarry
• The Two Cars (New York Review Childrens Collection) by Ingri D'Aulaire and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire
• My Terrific Race Car Book by DK Publishing