Roads and tape playscape

Your child may be into pretend play these days, and giving them little boosts helps them go deeper (and play longer). Setting up a roadmap with tape and little cars—on the ground or a table—gives them a landscape on which to create a whole world of pretend play.

HERE’S HOW TO MAKE A PLAYSCAPE OF TAPE ROADS:

• Although you can buy tape with road patterns on it, you can also do it yourself: using low-tack tape like painter’s or washi, create a series of roads on a large surface—a table, driveway, or the floor indoors.
• Draw lines on the tape and create intersections, roundabouts, freeway onramps and offramps, driveways, and more.
• Add small vehicles throughout the roadmap (cars, trains, trucks, planes—anything that moves) as well as other items that might appear in the road, like bridges, tunnels, and signs. You can use blocks to augment the landscape.
• You can get your child involved with the set-up, or do it yourself while they’re out of the way—and watch their reaction as they walk into a brand new world of play.
• If you have extra cardboard, you can make the roadmap multi-leveled by including cardboard ramps that run from the ground to a chair, up to a table, and back down to the floor. If your child is really into it, you can extend the road into different room and all over the home.