2.5y–4.2y12 minOutdoorFree playActive play
Number Parking Garage
A playful ‘park the vehicle’ setup using number labels on vehicles and matching parking spaces so your child has meaningful reasons to say, use, and check number words in play.
What you'll need
Essentials
- 3–6 vehicles to ‘park’ (toy cars, scooters, ride-on toys, or bikes)
- paper and a marker/crayon (to make number labels 1–5)
- tape or reusable sticky putty (for labels)
- 5 ‘parking spaces’ (paper squares, chalk spots, or tape rectangles)
Nice to have
- a small box/blanket to be the ‘garage’
- a bowl of pebbles/buttons (large enough to be safe) to count parked vehicles
Movement level: mild
What you'll do
The 4-step guide, with what to look for at each step, is for signed-in parents.
What this develops
What it practices
- Uses some number names and number language spontaneously.Observable behaviour from Development Matters
- Uses some number names accurately in play.Observable behaviour from Development Matters
- Recites numbers in order to 10.Observable behaviour from Development Matters
- Knows that numbers identify how many objects are in a set.Observable behaviour from Development Matters
- Beginning to represent numbers using fingers, marks on paper or pictures.Observable behaviour from Development Matters
Where it comes from
- Source
- Development Matters in the EYFS (DfE, 2012)
- Original guidance
- “Provide number labels for children to use, e.g. by putting a number label on each bike and a corresponding number on each parking space.”
- License
- Open Government Licence v3.0
- Attribution
- © Crown Copyright 2012 (Development Matters in the EYFS, DfE)