Motorbikes in Sand (Sensory & Outdoor)
Preschool to Kindergarten
Fill your sensory table or another large tub with play sand, or use this as an outdoor activity in your sandbox.  Provide the kids with toy motorcycles and some rocks as props and have them create a motorbike course in the sand.

If I Could Drive (Language/Writing/Group)
All Ages
One thing every child dreams about is the ability to drive. Tease their imagination by posing this question: If you could drive, where would you go and what would you do? Have them tell the class in group time, or with older kids, turn it into a writing project by having them write a short story about the adventures they would embark on.

Tire Roll (Large Motor/Outdoor)
All Ages
Bring in the rubber shell of a tire. (In a pinch you can simply use the spare tire from someone’s car, so long as it isn’t heavy enough that it might cause injury if it tips over or rolls over a child’s foot.) Bring it into your outdoor area and have the kids play games rolling it around and running alongside it.

Unusual Road Signs (Art/Creative/Group)
All Ages
Trim pieces of white paper into squares and triangles, just like the street signs you might see on the road. Set them out at a table along with markers and crayons, and pose this challenge to your kids: If you could think of any road signs that don’t exist but maybe should, what would they be? Encourage them to think of things both serious (No cell phones while driving) or silly (crocodile crossing, next 2 miles; Beware of flying saucers). Encourage them to give it some good thought and then come up with something unique.

Have them draw a picture on the sign that would convey this message, and then come up with a short message or slogan to write on their road signs. (If working with younger kids, have them dictate the message and write it for them.) Let kids make as many signs as they’d like, putting their name on the back of each one. Collect them all, and then later in group time show and read each road sign to the class before handing them back. It’s sure to be a lot of fun.

Wash the Car (Sensory/Outdoor)
All Ages
Cordon off an area of the parking lot and pull a staff car or the school van/bus into that section. Gather several buckets of soapy water and enough sponges and washrags for every child, and let them go to work scrubbing it clean. You may end up with a car that sparkles and shines from 4 feet down and is dirty at the top (stepladders or lifting kids up can alleviate this), but it’s a chore they’ll actually enjoy doing. Younger kids, especially, will take great pride in how clean they made it look.

Street Name Creation (Group/Language/Writing)
All Ages
Gather the kids in group time, and start by asking them to name some of the streets they know of around where they live. Write each one on your board. Next pose this question: What would you name streets if you were in charge of naming them? With younger kids, just have them shout out their answers. With older age groups, have them quietly make a list of street names they might like to see. They can be fun or silly, serious or bazaar. Finally, give each child a piece of paper (or if you can spare it, a larger piece of butcher paper) and have them draw their own road map for an imaginary town, labeling the streets with the ideas they came up with.

Car Stories (Art / Language)
All Ages
Have kids look through old magazines and cut out pictures of different cars or trucks. Paste a picture to a piece of paper, and ask kids to draw a background to go with it. Then have them write/dictate a story about the picture. Where is the car going? What is it doing? How did it get there? If it had feelings, what would the car be thinking? You can either do this project with a single picture or give the kids a mini-book of 6-10 pages stapled together, and have them create an entire car story.

Lemon Reports (Group / Language Arts / Cognitive)
Elementary School
Used car salesmen are notorious for getting a tad bit creative in their enthusiasm about the cars they are selling. Turn this attitude into a fun investigative project. Have kids search for a clunker of a car – just the junkiest piece of metal they can find. They can do this by snapping a picture of something in their own neighborhood, or one they’ve found online by Googling “pictures of…clunker cars/ugly cars/junkyard cars/world’s ugliest, most beat up cars” and so on.

Once they get a picture, print it out and have them write and prepare a presentation to give to the class, as if they were trying to sell that car as the most fabulous thing in the world. Encourage them to look for beauty or benefits in all its flaws. For example: It has that old rustic look…Wait a few more years and it will be an antique…Doubles as a lawn ornament…Comes with custom cardboard window coverings…Imagine all the exercise you’ll get pushing it around the block…Lacking doors might seem like an inconvenience, but imagine all the time and energy it will save you getting in and out. These are just some examples to get you in the right frame of mind; encourage kids to get creative and think up their own.

Give them a few days to prepare their hard sell, and then have them present their pitch in front of the class. Not only is it a fun project that will have your kids laughing in hysterical fits, but it’s a good exercise in creative perspective taking and in looking for goodness and beauty in everything around you.

Road Maps (Cognitive / Math / Dramatic Play)
All Ages
Back in the days before GPS, people actually used paper maps to get to where they were going. Hunt down as many of these fold out maps in as many different states as you can find, and use them as the basis for the following activities:

• Simply set them out in your dramatic play area and have younger kids use them as a prop while pretending they are embarking on a grand road trip.
• Give kids a starting location (Denver) and a destination (Grand Junction) and have them plot a route to get there.
• Using pieces of yarn or string, track them along the line of various highways; then mark them off, measure them, and use the map’s key at the bottom to calculate the approximate length of that stretch of road.
• Give them problems to solve, like calculating the distance between cities or seeing who can be the first to find a particular town or road on the map.

Other car-related assignments & projects:

• Have kids research a technology used in cars and write a short report about it.
• Have kids research their own family car: Make, mileage, model, year, engine type, etc., and write a short report about it.
• Look for jigsaw puzzles featuring cars or trucks and set them out for kids to do.
• Pick up a couple of model car kits from a hobby and craft store and work on them collectively as a classroom project.
• Have kids make a car diary: Staple a few sheets of paper together, and over the course of this theme, have them clip pictures of cars they like and paste them into their diary.