Every parent knows that toy cars, trucks, trains, buses and vehicles of all sorts provide endless hours of entertainment and play for kids. One of my favorite things to do is to surprise my kids with a new way to play with their toy cars, which is how we invented this diy obstacle course for toy cars.
The obstacle course started out as a simple toy car ramp. It's not pretty or complicated, but my kids didn't care. They loved it, and they loved figuring out ways to make it their own.
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How to Make a Toy Car Obstacle Course
Follow along as we share how we made our toy car obstacle course!
Materials
Metal baking sheets
Magnetic blocks. We used our awesome magnetic Tegu Blocks.
Clean tin cans and paper rolls
Toy vehicles of all sorts
Instructions
First, make the ramp by propping one of the metal baking sheets on the stack of books. The higher the stack, the steeper the ramp.
Next, continue the road with another baking sheet. Once you are on flat ground, you won't need the metal sheet, but you may want to give the cars a slight off ramp from the sheet to the floor if the lip is too high.
Gather together your Tegu Blocks and start building. How you arrange your blocks is up to you. We placed small blocks randomly so cars would need to swerve around them. Then we created short block tunnels with narrow passageways.
At the end of the course's road, we built a wall with a small opening that cars would need to exit through.
Prop paper rolls along the obstacle course to create tunnels. Tin cans can be strategically located to create "traps" which cars must avoid if they want to finish the course. We had some tin cans with magnets attached, left over from our DIY magnetic building set, and they were the perfect obstacle!
MORE: 20 Ways to Play with Toy Cars
Obstacle Course Variations
If you don't want to use a ramp, you can create an obstacle course directly on the floor. Of course, that means that cars can't race down the hill, but if you make your own road for cars like the one we did, your child will have a fun landscape on which to build the obstacle course.
The variations and obstacles your child can add are endless! Use LEGO blocks, our mystery diy toy or any other toys you can think of to add interest and dimension to the track. The beauty of this toy car play idea is that your child can keep changing things up so each time the cars go for a race, the course is new!
In fact, there may be a lot of traffic jams in your living room's future!
One final note: Yes, my baking sheets are sort of gross looking. However, I like to think that by showing you that my things are not pristine and pretty that you will feel better about your own housekeeping skills. I'm a little lazy when it come to scrubbing grease of my pans. I'd rather be reading.
First published 2013, updated 2023
Jackie Higgins says
my cookie sheets could be twins with yours! This is a great idea! THanks for sharing.
Erica says
Ha ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one!
maryanne @ mama smiles says
This is one of the best uses of Tegu blocks I've seen! LOVE!
Bethany @ No Twiddle Twaddle says
I love this post. I think my kids would really like to try it.
Carolyn @ Pleasantest Thing says
What a fun activity. I'm going to have to get these blocks.
Jessica @ Play Trains! says
So fun! We put obstacles in our trains' way, but a whole obstacle course for them would be really cool...I'll have to think about how to do it with track. Thanks!
Erica says
I'm sure my sons would love to use their trains to bulldoze blocks off the tracks!
Jen Fischer says
I absolutely love this activity!! I pinned to my Things That Go Board and am really excited to do this activity with my boys. So in love with it.
Erica says
Thanks, Jen. They will love it!
Samantha Lehmann says
I have not tried this with cookie sheets - I use them for magnets and writing... but we use the trays from fast food places we have here ... I confessed... the Montessori trays. We have these tiva blocks - what a great idea... just wanted to share - we have those blocks - they were the ones Frank Lloyd Wright played with exclusively as a boy. I love the weight and the sandstone. Yep... an early purchase for our future "architectural geniuses" .... no pressure.. and they are in a bag with all the blocks.. unplayed with... but they are really neat.. we are pulling them out for Greece and Rome.... maybe Knossos palace....
Erica says
Yup, those teva blocks have been on our wishlist for a while!