Wheels Busy Bag

Although I have girls, they often play with cars, trucks, trains and other toy vehicles. And it’s totally fine! How about your kids? For today I prepared few patterning strips to use inside wheels busy bag for sizing and practicing patterns as a simple math activity.

WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR WHEELS BUSY BAG?

• LEGO Creator Vehicle Pack (find here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom)
• paper
• printer
• printable pattern strips
• a bag (zip-lock bag is fine)

We used 2 different sizes of wheels from our existing stash of toys: 4 from Lego sets and 4 from our workshop. I have also prepared 5 different patterning strips to use with this activity (find the link to download and use for your kids on the bottom of this page).

I placed everything inside pencil bag but you can use zip lock bag or even an envelope to store pieces when they are not in use.

How to Play with Wheels Patterning Strips?

Show your child how to use patterning cards explaining the simplest of patterns – ABAB (sizes: little – big – little – big – etc.) and let them use other patterning strips to practice on their own.

This activity can easily be done with any type of manipulative as long as you can put together 4 pieces in 2 different sizes.

Inside free printable, you will find 5 different pattern strips to use for beginners to patterning:

• ABAB,
• BABA,
• AABAAB,
• BBABBA and
• ABBABB.

Learning Opportunities

As they play with wheels, children learn:

• early math (patterns and counting)
• visual tracking (sensory system)
• following directions

Extend the Learning with a Book about different Vehicles

From a digger to a dump truck, a fuel truck to a fire engine, this is a colorful collection for all little fans of big trucks. The black outline illustrations have card flaps to lift which reveal what’s going on inside the trucks, and the simple text explains each one’s special job. Find the book here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom

Can your child count them all? Filled with many different types of questions to broaden those little minds, like: Count the red cars? Can you count more trucks or more helicopters? How many can sail on the sea? Find the book here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom

What to Do Next? – Early Math Activities to Try

Work on numbers with counting eggs activity and counting kites activity. Some of the activities focus on sizes like sorting hearts and Wheels on the Bus activity. For number recognition, try some of the repetitive activities such as activities with Uno cards, numbers sensory bin or Hickory Dickory Dock activity.