So cool! The kids in Paolo’s preschool class decided to make their house area into a mechanic’s shop using their outdoor play cars and the teachers went with it. I thought it was such a great brilliant idea that I started brainstorming right away. As a parent or a teacher you could make this simple or really go to town. Here are a few of my ideas:
1. Cars made out of large cardboard boxes if you don’t have play cars for your children. Added benefit here is that they can really get into creating and decorating them. Or you could do it all on a smaller scale with blocks and matchbox cars.
2. Clean, empty oil bottles or empty plastic bottles of any kind to use as oil bottles.
3. Large blocks, yoga blocks or small cardboard boxes to get the cars up on ‘blocks.’
4. Mechanic’s outfit. Maybe jeans, a denim shirt and ‘work’ boots.
5. Rags and a drop cloth.
6. Cash register.
7. Keys, real or plastic.
8. Taped off area on the floor to designate the ‘garage,’ stalls, and lanes.
9. Tools, tool belt and a tool box. Plastic or wooden tools are good, though we let Paolo pretend with real tools under our supervision.
10. A sign of course! What fun to make it together on a piece of sturdy cardboard: Paolo’s Great Garage.
11. Work gloves, protective glasses, filter masks.
12. Headlamp or flashlight to check under the hood.
13. Tire gauge and balloon hand pump to inflate the tires.
You could do this at home if you have a large enough area, or even make it more realistic by setting it up in your own garage. We keep a stash of empty recyclables for pretend play times like these, but a quick trip to the Dollar Store will work if you don’t have some of these things at home. I’m kind of jealous I didn’t cook up this idea myself!
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