Transportation Play Dough Activity Tray

Transportation Play Dough Tray

Need a fun transportation play dough activity for your kids? Your Preschool or Pre-K students will have a blast exploring and creating with this hands-on transportation play dough activity!

Transportation Themed Play Dough Activity

Transportation Play Dough Activity

At first glance, playing with play dough may seem like it’s just for fun; but playing with dough has many educational benefits for young children. There are many benefits to setting up a Play Dough Center in your classroom!

When your little learners play with dough, they’re developing important creativity and fine motor skills in fun and playful ways. Rolling dough with rolling pins and pressing cookie cutters into the dough is excellent fine motor practice. There’s a list for at the end of this post that explains how play dough supports academic learning.

Transportation Play Dough Tray

Transportation Play Dough Tray Supplies

You can use the material ideas listed below to set up a fun and inviting transportation themed invitation to play in your own classroom.

These are just some suggestions for setting up a fun play dough tray for your kids. You can choose the supplies you prefer or have readily available in your classroom.

Transportation Theme Play Dough Activity

Play Dough Invitation

Chip and dip trays are perfect for setting up your materials to create this fun play experience for your kids. These types trays can usually be found at your local dollar store.

Play dough invitations are all about providing young children with open-ended experiences. There’s no right or wrong way to use the fun materials on the tray.

To get started, just invite your little learners to explore the materials on the tray.

As your kids begin to interact with the play dough and materials on the tray, soon their creativity and imaginations will begin to take over. When young children are engaged in activities that invite them to be creative and use their imaginations, their attention spans will naturally begin to increase. Think about how much your kids can benefit from increased attention spans!

Transportation Play Dough Tray for Preschool

Transportation Play Dough Exploration

If you’re wondering what you should do if your students are using only some of the materials on the transportation play dough tray and not others — the answer is simple, let them to choose!

When it comes to mixing the different colors of play dough (gasp!) don’t worry, this process is all about creating with the materials, and has nothing to do with making keeping the colors of the dough separate.

When you allow young children the freedom to choose what to do with the dough and materials — you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how creative they can be when given a chance!

Transportation Play Dough Task Cards

Transportation Play Dough Task Cards

You may also want to add some task cards to your transportation themed activities. These task cards are perfect additions to your transportation themed lesson plans. The play dough task cards are included in the transportation bundle.

Each card provides students with an opportunity to practice their concepts of print and emergent literacy skills by “reading” the sentence at the top. When laminated or placed in dry erase pockets, the word below each picture offers an opportunity to practice writing, fine motor, and tracing skills. Finally, each card also has an area for students to practice important classification skills by identifying the way each vehicle moves.

Play Dough Task Cards Transportation Theme

Transportation Play Dough Educational Benefits

As promised, I’ve listed educational benefits of play dough for you below — enjoy!

Creativity – Your kids can use their imaginations to create rather than follow a template or sample. Imaginative children are more likely to become problem solvers later in life.

Communication Skills – Your children can talk with their classmates in a relaxed environment which facilitates oral language development. Oral language development is directly related to reading scores later.

Small Group or Independent Work – Dough is perfect for young children to use independently, or in a small group.

Fine Motor Skills – Rolling the dough, pressing in gems and other materials is great for strengthening those important fine motor skills your kids will need for writing later.

What about math and literacy? I’m so glad you asked! As your kids gather around the tray to explore the fun materials, they’ll be practicing those important oral language skills that are crucial to literacy learning. As for math, counting the sticks used to create railroad tracks or parking lot fences is just one of the many different ways your kids will be practicing their counting and math skills with this activity tray.


Check out this research-based, playful learning unit in our curriculum shop!

Transportation Theme Bundle for Preschool
Preview in the Shop

Transportation Bundle

A bundle of of my most popular transportation resources, including math and literacy small group activities! Make learning fun with these hands-on resources!

Other Transportation Ideas—
Transportation Color Sorting and Mixing
Alphabet Relay
Transportation Preschool Theme Books
Transportation Process Art Activity

More Transportation Ideas

Transportation Songs for Preschool Kids
ABC Car Parking Lot
How to Teach Shapes with road mats
Patterning with cars
Transportation Play Dough Tray
Transportation Color Mixing
Transportation Alphabet Relay
Transportation Process Art