Car Seat Play (Dramatic Play)
Bring in a couple car seats and place them in your dramatic play area. Place them with a couple chairs, some stuffed animals or
dolls, and some keys or other car related props to play with. Let the kids practice buckling and un-buckling the animals or dolls in the car seats, while pretending to set off on a variety of adventures in their ‘vehicles’. Use the time to talk about care safety and how important it is that they be buckled up and in a car seat if they have oneLife Experience
Life Experiences (Group)
Just about everyone has had experience with a car accident, either first hand, or through the stories of a friend or loved one. Sit down and share these experiences with your kids. It can be a good tool in helping children to realize the danger that car accidents happen all the time, and the importance of wearing their seatbelts.
Seatbelt Bribery (Special)
Not very often do we suggest anything of the sort in the classroom, but picking a week to offer rewards for wearing seatbelts can be a great way to encourage awareness of seatbelt wearing among the kids. Pick a week, and let the kids know that during that week, if they come into the classroom in the morning and tell you that they wore their seatbelt and sat nicely in a car seat, if they had one) they get a small reward, such as a sticker or piece of candy.
Steering Wheels (Art-Fine Motor)
Cut out a paper plate in the shape of a steering wheel. Let the children decorate them how they wish using crayon’s or markers. You can later use them as props in car related play activities.
Seatbelt Play (Gross Motor-Dramatic Play)
Set your dramatic play area into a couple of ‘cars’ by putting chairs together in two by two fashion as the seating of a car. Next, cut up some cloth strips to symbolize seatbelts and tie them to one end of the chair. On the other end, attach a piece of sticky velcro, and attach the piece to the other side of the chair to create a seatbelt. You can wrig up the same thing using ropes or bunji chords as well, or whatever you would like to substitute for. Have the children sit in the chairs, get buckled up of course, and pretend play off on a variety of different adventures. You can add the steering wheels on this page or other car related props to the activity as well.
Lego Car Crashes (Fine Motor)
Set out a racing strip in an open area of your classroom or on a table, by using masking tape to outline a road. Have the children create cars to crash into each other. After they have them built, have them roll them into each other head on and see how they make out. Use this opportunity to talk about the importance of wearing seatbelts.
Tire Track Art (Art)
Set out some different colored paints on paper plates at your art table. Thin the paints just slightly with water. Get out a variety of toy cars, trucks, or motorcycles. Give each child a piece of construction paper, and have them Dip the wheels in the paint on the paper plates and then run them across their paper to create tire track prints on the paper.
Car Crash Games (Gross Motor-Blocks)
In your block area or an open area of the classroom, set out some play cars, along with towel tubes or cardboard pieces, or small boards to create ramps with. Let the children use the props to make various creative ways for the cars to crash either along or into each other.