A busy bag is a small, self-contained activity that lives in a bag or a box and comes out when a child needs something to do with their hands. The DIY Car Track Busy Bag is one that lasts for years: a set of short road pieces a child can lay out into any track they like, plus a small toy car to drive along it. It packs down into a little box and comes back out time and time again. Ages 2 to 5.
What you need:
- Two thin rubber door mats. The kind with a flat top and a dimpled or ridged underside. The pattern on the underside is useful, more on that in a moment.
- A craft knife or sharp scissors to cut the mats into strips.
- White acrylic paint and a small brush for the road markings.
- A small box with a lid to store the pieces. A little plastic tool box with a handle is ideal, but any lidded box that the pieces fit into will do.
- One small toy car. Standard die-cast or pull-back size is right.
Cutting and painting the track
Cut each mat into strips about the width of a toy car’s wheelbase. This is where the underside pays off: a row of raised dots along the back works as a guide to cut in a reasonably straight line. Reasonably is the operative word, since a few will wander. Two mats yield around thirty-four pieces of track, far more than one layout needs and exactly enough to keep two children from arguing.
Turn the strips flat side up and paint a broken white line down the centre of each one to look like a road. Freehanding the dashes with a small brush is quickest. Up close they are wobbly, but from a child’s eye level on the carpet they read as a road perfectly well. Let them dry fully on both sides before they go in the box, or the paint lifts.
Playing with it
Children take to it straight away, and tend to build completely different things. One might want a single long straight road running the length of the rug; another zig-zags across the carpet in tight turns. Because the pieces are not fixed together, they can spend ages rearranging the layout, pulling it apart and starting again. That is the part that holds attention: the track is never finished, so there is always something to change.
Lifting the middle of a strip and propping it makes a ramp, and the whole thing turns into a stunt course. The flexible rubber makes it possible, a happy accident rather than a design feature.
For a much bigger outdoor version of the same idea, our Giant Car Track For Name Writing uses painted wooden strips laid out on the lawn to spell a child’s name. For another portable set that travels even smaller, our Seaside Car Track Busy Bag tucks into a sunglasses case for the beach.
One closing observation. The reason this one lasts is that it does not need an adult. Once the pieces are made, the whole activity is in a box a child can fetch and tip out alone. It comes down far more often than toys that need setting up, and the pieces survive years of being trodden on. Worth an afternoon with a craft knife and a pot of white paint.