21 Literacy Ideas for Car and Truck Play

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Do your kiddos adore playing with cars and trucks?  I’m an advocate of taking a child’s interests and building learning opportunities around those interests.  Here are some of the best literacy ideas to utilize during car and truck play.  Let’s get rolling!

Literacy Ideas with Cars and Trucks

LEARNING THE ALPHABET

ABC Tunnels from the Simple Play Ideas are so fun and easy to make.  We all have cardboard tubes on hand so you can do this activity today!

Letter Delivery is a fun movement activity for learning the alphabet and it has a cute book about a car to go along with it.

Kids love to knock things down?  This ABC Knockdown from Teaching Mama lets the kids knock down alphabet towers with construction trucks.

Race to a Letter from True Aim Education is a fun activity for building letter recognition and also working on science and math concepts.

Monster Truck Letter Smash from Toddler Approved caught the attention of my kids when I was searching for ideas in this post.  They can’t wait to do this one!

Race the Alphabet from Life with Moore Babies is another variation of the activity above and it includes a fun racing book recommendation.

Kitchen Floor Crafts shares an easy to make a Letter Match Race Car Village.  My kids love this kind of play mat.

Playdough to Plato shares a set of lowercase and uppercase tracing letter tracks.  These would be perfect for a busy bag.

Make sure to grab your FREE set of ABC vehicle cards.  Keep reading to learn how to get your set.

ENVIRONMENTAL PRINT

Billboards are a great way to introduce your kids to environmental print.  Now, they can have a custom set for their own car and truck play!

Are We There Yet?  Maps are great for taking in the car on a road trip.  Another way for kids to learn about environmental print and stay busy on a long or short trip!

Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails shares a fun paper city for lots of fun car play.

LEARNING YOUR NAME

This Parking Garage activity will have kids practicing their names and cleaning up the room! It is one of the most popular activity posts on Growing Book by Book.

Buggy and Buddy share a toy car activity for learning your name.  I’ll be using this idea next week with my kids!

 SIGHT WORDS

Race Car Word Erase is a fun way to have kids practice reading sight words or identifying letters of the alphabet.

Alphabet Rocks Construction Site Activity from The Imagination Tree is a scoop and spell activity that would be perfect for building simple sight words or word family words.

Ready, set, race!  Our Whimsical Days shares a racing activity that involves learning those sight words.

SPELLING AND WORD STUDY

Monster Truck Phonics Smash utilizes those monster trucks.  Kids will jump over cars with their truck as they sound out words.

Car Track Delivery from Stay at Home Educator is a great way to let the kids move while they work on their spelling skills.

Sound it Out Parking Lot from I Can Teach My Child is a great activity for helping kids sound out and blend words.

 A FEW BONUS CAR AND TRUCK IDEAS

And this last one from Learn with Play will have the kids using their books as part of their car and truck play.

Check out the video below to hear about some of the car and truck literacy play ideas.

Oh, don’t miss our Ultimate Construction Vehicle Book List!  It’s a great list of books to add to your car and truck play center.

I hope you are inspired to add a little literacy practice into your kids’ car and truck play.

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*This post was first published on Growing Book by Book 11/24/14.

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