Guide to Vehicle Play for Little City Planners

Here are our top picks for our littler city planners who are still under 3 years old.  

Way To Play Roads: These are just such a great foundation for vehicle play, and they’ll be fun to use for years and years. The only thing I’d point out is a toddler will not be able to put these together on their own. Connecting the pieces and planning out a road route is not something most toddlers are up for. You’ll need to set up a road for them, but once you do they’ll be happily zooming their cars all around the town.

Grimms convertibles (available in orange, blue, yellow and green): These are nice, chunky, sturdy wooden vehicles that come with a peg person driver (and passenger depending on which convertible you choose). They are a bigger scale vehicle, perfect for small hands that are still developing motor skills and dexterity.

Bajo vehicles: We love these made in Poland wooden cars because they are very well made and many have adorable smiling drivers that are reminiscent of old school Fisher Price people. Bright, vibrant colours and a sturdy build make these a great fit for crash and bash toddlers.

​Grimms Large Rainbows (available in rainbow, pastel, natural, and monochrome). For this size of vehicle, the large rainbow is really the best choice since most of the arches are big enough for the cars to pass under. Even the largest arch of the medium rainbows isn’t quite tall enough for a convertible to get under. The first photo shows the large rainbow, the second shows the largest arch of the pastel medium rainbow.

Grimms Large Stepped Pyramid: These long, tall blocks are an instant collection of towering skyscrapers. Easy and quick to set up and fairly stable (in comparison to a skyscraper built of several, smaller blocks). But of course you can use any blocks you have to stack up and make excitingly tall buildings.

Here are our top picks for kiddos roughly 3 years to 5 years old

Way To Play Roads: These are just such a great foundation for vehicle play, and they’ll be fun to use for years and years. Depending on the child, they may be designing their own road routes and connecting the pieces themselves. But you may still need to help engineer more complicated routes.

Grimms Large or Medium rainbows: Depending on your vehicle choice, you could do either one. The smaller scale vehicles (like Plan Toys, Siku, and Candylab candycars / candyvans) can easily drive under the bigger arches on the medium rainbow. But you’ll have more flexibility and more arches to work with with the large rainbows. In this above photo, you can see on the left a few of the smaller arches from the Large Rainbow, and on the right the two largest arches of the Medium Pastel Rainbow. The Plan Toys vehicles can easily pass through either, and the same goes for Siku. Most of the Candylab Candycars could go through either, but some of the Candyvans have bigger items on the top (like the ice cream van with its giant ice cream cone on top) making the Large Rainbow a better bet.

Lubulona Town: Lubulona is a beautiful wooden toy line from Spain. Their mission is to create gender neutral vehicle and construction play. This husband/wife team make wooden vehicles, peg people and stackable buildings that are perfect for mixing and matching and building a collection over time. These photos show two of the Lubu Town sets (available in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter colour palettes) which come with a building (in two pieces - can be used side be side or stacked on top of each other), two ladders (which can be used on the building or as a ramp for the car) and a car with a peg person driver. You can also get the towns in a Maxi size (also available in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter colour palettes) and the vehicles on their own. It’s a lovely collection - check it out here!

Plan Toys vehicles: These vehicles are so fun! It’s the wheels - they just have the smoothest rolling wheels ever. Very sturdy and adorably wee, these are great little vehicles to buzz around your newly created town with. The ones pictured here are the Planworld Car Set, but they also make an awesome Construction Set and Mini Cars Set. Plan Toys also makes a fantastic Set of Traffic Signs and Lights.

Siku vehicles: Start your engines!! These massively popular cars are very realistic and come in a few sizes. All the ones pictured here are the “super” sized vehicles and they come in a bunch of different styles and colours from a Fiat to a Double Decker Bus to a Forklift to a fancy pants Porsche Carrera. City Planning Play never looked so good!

Candylab: makes beautiful wooden vehicles with a modern retro vibe. While you can use either of their two sizes with Way To Play roads, we’re partial to the candycar/candyvan smaller size. They just match so perfectly with Way to Play and all the City Planners collection and there are a tonne of choices. Have an ice cream lover? A taco enthusiast? Check out the whole collection to see which one is the best fit for your little motorist. If there is a toy car company that can make ANYONE a vehicle lover, it’s Candylab. One caveat - these cars chip and dent easily, so if your kiddo is still playing rough, I’d give these a pass until they’re a little older and ready to be more careful. Stick with the other options for now.

Grimms Large Stepped Pyramid: These long, tall blocks are an instant collection of towering skyscrapers. Easy and quick to set up and fairly stable (in comparison to a skyscraper built of several, smaller blocks). But of course you can use any blocks you have to stack up and make excitingly tall buildings.

Areaware Blockitecture Blocks: This is a bit of a maybe for this age, but if you’re looking more for something to do WITH your kiddo, these can be a super fun choice. The building options are very cool, and you can easily build up sleek cityscapes with their awesome mix and match sets. I do think it would be tough for many preschoolers to build with these on their own though. But we enjoyed making cities with these blocks with our son when he was this age, but we did most of the actual construction.

For kids 6 and up, you can really go in any direction you please!

Blockitecture Blocks by Areaware: This line is just so cool. Build the world you want to see and create the kind of communities and park spaces you think are ideal! Easily build up sleek cityscapes with these fantastic mix and match sets. This line is so compelling, even grown up architects fall in love with it. We’ve had more than a few real life architects bring these sets home to play with themselves. Definitely NOT just for kids!

Grimms Large or Medium rainbows: Depending on your vehicle choice, you could do either one. The smaller scale vehicles (like Siku and Candylab candycars / candyvans) can easily drive under the bigger arches on the medium rainbow. But you’ll have more flexibility and way more arches to work with with the large rainbows. In this above photo, you can see on the left a few of the smaller arches from the Large Rainbow, and on the right the two largest arches of the Medium Pastel Rainbow. The Plan Toys vehicles can easily pass through either, and the same goes for Siku. Most of the Candylab Candycars could go through either, but some of the Candyvans have bigger items on the top (like the ice cream van with its giant ice cream cone on top) making the Large Rainbow a better bet.

Way To Play Roads: These are just such a great foundation for vehicle play, and they’ll be fun to use for years and years. Depending on the child, they will likely have no troubles designing their own road routes and connecting the pieces themselves at this age. But don’t be shy about asking to get in on the fun!

Siku vehicles: Start your engines!! These massively popular cars are very realistic and come in a few sizes. All the ones pictured here are the “super” sized vehicles and they come in a bunch of different styles and colours from a Fiat to a Double Decker Bus to a Forklift to a fancy pants Porsche Carrera. City Planning Play never looked so good!

Candylab: makes beautiful wooden vehicles with a modern retro vibe. While you can use either of their two sizes with Way To Play roads, we’re partial to the candycar/candyvan smaller size. They just match so perfectly with Way to Play and all the City Planners collection and there are a tonne of choices. Have an ice cream lover? A taco enthusiast? Check out the whole collection to see which one is the best fit for your little motorist. If there is a toy car company that can make ANYONE a vehicle lover, it’s Candylab. Beautiful photo courtesy of @ourlittlechaos.