The best car toys for preschoolers are the ones that keep them engaged and busy. Here are our kid tested and parent approved favorites!!
We take several road trips per year in our family. We also spend a good amount of time running around town. The kids are in the car a lot! Although they get plenty of entertainment when we reach our destinations, they certainly get antsy while we’re getting there! Here are my favorite car toys to bring along to keep my preschooler entertained and happy!
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BEST CAR TOYS FOR PRESCHOOLERS
When they’re little, their toys are sensory. There really isn’t much to them. If you missed my Best Car Toys for Babies post, be sure to check that out HERE!
Once the kiddos hit preschool, toys for the car seat become a whole other animal. They need to be not only engaging but also though provoking to keep them busy. Here are our tried and true items that we ALWAYS have with us.
PEN AND NOTEBOOK
These are an absolute staple for us. A child can do just about anything with a pen and paper. They can practice writing or even simply pretend to write. Drawings are plentiful. Pages can be pulled out and folded or turned into paper airplanes. My 4 year old loves her SEQUINED NOTEBOOK so she can make different designs on the outside with her finger. She also loves fancy pens! We made this FLOWER PEN ourselves, so don’t forget to check out the tutorial! It’s easy and inexpensive, so you won’t be devastated when you lose one of your child’s fancy pens.
BINOCULARS
CHILD BINOCULARS are so much fun! They don’t magnify as much as normal binoculars do, so that helps your child be able to actually find the thing they’re trying to look at. I know I’ve gotten lost trying to find something I was trying to see when using regular binoculars!! I hope I’m not the only one! Anyway, because they don’t magnify nearly as much, they’re also great for the car (and beyond depending on your destination).
SCRATCH AND SKETCH BOOKS
These SCRATCH AND SKETCH BOOKS are so cool!! I’m guilty of excitedly asking my daughter if there is an area she wouldn’t mind me doing. Children get to use an included wooden “pen” to scratch off an outline and reveal the metallic colors underneath. Don’t worry – it isn’t very messy. Less mess than a scratcher. They can get as creative as they want continuing to scratch and decorate. There is also a story that reads along with the pictures/sketches in some of the books. We all love them!
AMAZON FIRE KIDS’ TABLET
My husband and I aren’t fans of giving our kids electronics to get them to behave/stay quiet. We don’t ever have phones/tablets etc. out at the table. We think it’s so sad when we look over at a restaurant and see people sitting together yet completely immersed in their separate worlds on their phones ignoring one another, so we’re trying to set a good example for our kids.
That being said, our older daughter does have a tablet for a couple of reasons. The first is that we were going on a plane ride followed by many days where she would be stuck in a rental car, and we thought that was unfair to do to her without providing some sort of mental relief. Children can only be expected to sit still and behave for so long. Secondly, her generation will be growing up expected to know how to operate electronics, and these tablets can be very educational both in developing the skills to operate them and by playing the games they offer. SO……..we got her a tablet.
Amazon packages their standard Fire tablet in a child’s bundle that includes:
- A kid case to make it easier to hold and protect it
- A 1 year subscription to Amazon Free Time which basically means access to an absurd number of games, books, and movies/shows for free (and it is still very inexpensive for the annual subscription once your trial is over)
- Their 2 year worry-free guarantee where they’ll replace the tablet if your child breaks it within the first 2 years of owning it NO QUESTIONS ASKED!
- It is a fully functioning tablet. You can sign out of the child profile and sign into the password protected adult profile and have a fully functioning adult tablet.
It seemed like a no brainer to get the FIRE KIDS EDITION with all of this included. And with all the versatility it offers it was an obvious choice for our best car toys for preschoolers list.
BOOKS
Books of all kinds keep our daughter entertained. But for the car, we really love pop-up books and/or lift-the-flap books. Not only are their pages thicker and more durable, but they keep her entertained since she can’t yet read. A couple of her favorites are the SPOT books (hand-me-downs from my own childhood) and the POP-UP PEEKABOO books. Although they are simplistic in their stories, they are great for a preschooler who will be handling them on their own instead of having them read to them.
KALEIDOSCOPE
A KALEIDOSCOPE is always fun, and we especially enjoy ours in the car. The changing light as the car moves through patches of shade and sun make the images even more interesting. Plus, they require a child to sit still, which is what they’re stuck doing while in the car!
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ROAD TRIP BINGO
Not just for road trips! ROAD TRIP BINGO can keep your child entertained even on a local drive. It also gets them interested in the items they’re looking for, and can start educational conversations. Your child doesn’t need an opponent. They can simply try to get a straight line as a challenge on their own, or simply play for the fun of finding the items.
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MASKS
A great way to keep your preschooler entertained is to encourage them to pretend they’re somebody else in the car! Let their imagination take control as they pretend to be a superhero or masked magician. A rousing game of make believe can make any car ride more entertaining! My daughter loves her BUTTERFLY MASK (similar item), but I also thought this VARIETY PACK OF SUPERHERO MASKS looked really fun.
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COLORED PENCILS + AN ACTIVITY/COLORING BOOK
All those coloring and activity books are great until you have a hot day and the crayons melt OR one of the markers gets dropped with the cap off. We love to use COLORED PENCILS in the car, because they don’t create a mess! I put them in a cup in my daughter’s car seat cup holder for her.
She uses them with all sorts of things. She loves COLORING/ACTIVITY BOOKS and DOT-TO-DOT BOOKS. I found this BEAUTIFUL DISNEY THOMAS KINKADE COLORING BOOK that I am ordering for her now that she’s getting a little better at staying in the lines. I keep a clipboard in the car so she can use it as a backing for her thinner books.
LACING TOYS
These LACING TOYS have been keeping my daughter’s little hands busy for about a year now. She likes to come up with different “stitches”. These are great because they teach dexterity, hand/eye coordination, and patterns.
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HIGH FIVE MAGAZINE by HIGHLIGHTS
And finally, we love our HIGH FIVE MAGAZINE. I grew up with Highlights Magazine. High Five is the version for younger children. My daughter loves it! The pictures with hidden items are great for car rides, because she can do them on her own. The magazine does have portions with short stories and a few other things that require my assistance. But because the format is generally the same each month, she can easily figure out what to do on the activity pages because they are familiar from the previous months.
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ADDRESS SONG TO TEACH CHILDREN THEIR ADDRESS
SHOP THIS POST
SEQUINED NOTEBOOK
FLOWER PEN
CHILD BINOCULARS
SCRATCH AND SKETCH BOOK
AMAZON FIRE KIDS EDITION TABLET
SPOT BOOK
POP-UP PEEKABOO BOOK
KALEIDOSCOPE
ROAD TRIP BINGO
BUTTERFLY MASK
VARIETY PACK OF SUPERHERO MASKS
COLORED PENCILS
COLORING/ACTIVITY BOOKS
THOMAS KINKADE DISNEY COLORING BOOK
DOT-TO-DOT BOOKS
LACING TOYS
HIGH FIVE MAGAZINE
PIN IT FOR LATER
BEST CAR TOYS FOR PRESCHOOLERS VIDEO
Thanks for stopping by!!
XO,
Morgan
The Cheeky Homemaker
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