As part of our Aeroplane Theme on The SEN Resources Blog we’ve made a toy airport out of masking tape and duplo. Simple and quick activity that provides hours of imaginative play fun! 

What do you need:

• Masking Tape (quite a lot!)
• Pen
• Something to make your airport buildings (duplo, building blocks, cardboard)
• Toy planes

What do you do? 

1. Depending on the size of the area of floor you want to use, create a couple of runways by taping the masking tape onto the floor (check the floor can’t be damaged… I’m taking no responsibility!) 
2. Create thinner parts for the airplanes to taxi round to the runways 
3. Using a few strips of tape make the area in front of the airport for the airplanes. 
4. Build your airport buildings- we used duplo and made terminal buildings and a control tower. 
5. Play!

What can children learn from this activity and what are the benefits?

• Imagination and Creativity
• Numeracy skills- including shapes, identifying numbers and measurements. Measuring how long the tape needs to be for example and deciding on the different shapes to make the airport. By numbering the runways you can provide an opportunity for children to identify numbers.
• Communication and Language Skills- Whilst playing with their airport children have an opportunity to develop these skills, discussing which airplanes are taking off and landing and which runway they will use.