Section: Role Play

Making a giant roadway is brilliant for imaginative play and a good way to introduce talking about road safety.

What you need:

• some space (harder than it sounds with lots of toys around!)
• a couple of rolls of masking tape - we found packs of 2 rolls in the 99p shop
• ride on toys
• small cars

Variations / things you could add:

• traffic lights
• a roundabout
• different road signs
• simple maps
• tunnels
• a chalk drawn roadway outside

How can this help your child's development?

A giant roadway can be a great way to encourage role play particularly if you set up an end destination (we had a library and shop to visit in our 'cars'!). It helps children develop conversation skills and use positional language as they discuss which way they are going and where places are. If you use road signs it can help children discover that marks carry meaning and may start to recognise numbers or letters. As children manoeuvre the ride on toys it can help develop their physical gross motor skills (large movements).

A large roadway can also be used to play with smaller cars, which can be a fun way to extend small world play. Whilst playing with cars you can discuss the importance of looking carefully when crossing the road and how to safely use a zebra crossing.