One of my favorite video games as a kid (okay, as an adult too!) is still the original Mario Kart game. Naturally, I'm thrilled that my kids have grown fond of the Mario games and characters themselves, so I put together a small world idea based off one of the tracks from the Mario Kart video game: Rainbow Road.
This simple Mario inspired small world idea for kids encourages lots of imaginative play and creativity.
This post contains affiliate links.
Mario Kart Inspired Small World Play Idea for Kids
For this small world, we used:- Magna-Tiles Clear Colors 100 piece set
- Mario Kart toys - The ones we used were McDonald's happy meal toys last summer. However, you could simply substitute the toys with little Hot Wheels cars.
Either build a track for the kids ahead of time or get them to work together with you to create an epic Rainbow Road track out of Magna-Tiles. This part can be tricky, especially trying to line up the pieces so that they'll actually connect at the end. We managed after a few attempts to get the track just right.
Then line up those racers and do a countdown! 5-4-3-2-1...GO!
Who's in the lead? Is it Yoshi? Is it Peach?
Oh no, Yoshi has been knocked down by one of Donkey Kong's items!
But hold up...who's this approaching the finish line? Can it be? Yes, it's Toad! Toad wins the race! PS: Toad's my favorite!
This small world is great for imaginative play, but it's also great for exploring ordinal numbers by discussing the places that each racer comes in at (e.g., first, second, third, etc.), which is easily J's favorite part. His love for math sneaks in everywhere.
Other Ideas You'll Love
This post is part of the Small World Pretend Play Ideas from A to Z series hosted by Still Playing School. I already shared an alligator themed small world and I'll be back with letter X!
