I couldn’t help but notice that my son has pushed a train or a car around the tracks for almost 2 years now. He loves to watch them go up the railroad tracks or creates his own path and I see them zip over the floor. I honestly have no idea how he’s not bored. He genuinely seems to be thrilled watching and pushing, creating and playing.
At least once a day, there is a new track set up on the floor (he no longer likes the train table since he noticed the floor has more room.) We have things to make the vehicles go up and slides to make them go down, bridges you can connect and car washes that make sounds.
My daughter, who is two, watches him and does exactly what he does. She doesn’t like to play with dolls yet, but loves to push the choo, choo train. I created this activity to help both of them. Help teach my daughter colors and help my son connect the correct color with the vehicle and see if he could also follow patterns.
My project started like this:
I just created “Parking Lots” on paper and colored in areas for the vehicles. His task was to match the color of the car to the color on the paper AND if it was slanted, to follow the shapes.
I never know how a project is going to turn out. If its going to keep his interest, if he’s going to understand it, if he likes it, but this was a winner. I got a solid hour of him learning and playing all at the same time.
First, I showed him “how” it worked and wanted to see if he understood it.
Needless to say, I underestimate the little guy and he nailed it right on.
So I brought out the “big guns.” <<<<—with lots of colors and a busier page
And that was a piece of cake too –
But he was a little bummed out. You see he had all these green spaces and only one green car. NOTE TO SELF: Put the green crayon down!
This was a fun, educational project that kept him busy for a while. He asked if there was one for trains—guess I have a new mission.