Leading up to our big Indianapolis 500 race day event, I wanted to add a touch of racing ideas throughout the classroom so I added a racetrack to my magnetic board and tossed in a few craft stick race car magnets too…
To make our race cars, I simply hot glued two magnets to each craft stick for the wheels of the car and then added a number and  some stripes to each craft stick race car…
I used black painter’s tape to add a track to our magnetic board. This is what the magnetic board looked like as the children arrived to preschool…
And this is how the children actually played with the board. Â This little girl sat and put all the cars in order by the number on each car….
And this little guy decided the track needed parking spaces and so he asked me if he could use the tape…
And then he added more tape to the magnetic board…
But no one actually raced around the track! I am not so sure my students actually knew what this was supposed to be…
So, my super great idea for creating a magnetic racetrack didn’t get used quite as I had expected but we still had some interesting skills being developed. The children found the board interesting enough to work on number recognition, fine motor skills, and creative expression…
Next time, I might just lay the magnet board flat and give the children real toy race cars:) Â But for today, the magnetic board did invite some creative thinking and engineering so that made it all worthwhile….
The magnetic board
For those of you who have not seen this magnetic board before, it is a large, silver, metal oil pan that can be purchased in the auto supply section of places like Walmart or other Auto Supply stores. Â I painted my metal pan white on one side and red on the other…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
The parts of a car from Teach Preschool
Car painting on a highway from Teach Preschool
DIY Magnetic Craft stick Shapes from Teach Preschool