Getting Around

Getting Around is a hands-on wooden play set from Freckled Frog that brings transport, journeys and community roles into early years play. Sixteen illustrated transport pieces range from scooters and fire engines to rockets and helicopters, giving children a varied fleet for driving, flying, sailing and storytelling.

The 16-piece set represents different ways people and goods move on land, through the air and on water. The freestanding pieces can be handled, arranged and combined with other suitable early years resources, giving children freedom to create scenes and revisit ideas across many play sessions.

Made from sustainably sourced New Zealand pine, the Getting Around uses durable heat-transfer graphics for clear, colourful detail. Pieces range from approximately 19 x 5 cm to 3.5 x 3 cm and are 2 cm thick, providing useful variation while remaining easy to stand and move.

What makes Getting Around special

Getting Around combines everyday and imaginative transport within one set. Children can compare a scooter with a fire engine, a boat with a helicopter or a road journey with space travel, building vocabulary around movement, purpose and place.

The wooden format keeps the activity open-ended. Children can begin with naming and matching, progress to sorting and comparison, then apply their knowledge within role play or a shared story. This progression gives the product lasting educational value as language and ideas develop.

Key features

• Sixteen illustrated transport pieces
• Includes scooters, rockets, fire engines, helicopters and more
• Represents land, air and water travel
• Pieces range from approximately 19 x 5 cm to 3.5 x 3 cm
• Every piece measures 2 cm thick
• Sustainably sourced New Zealand pine
• Hard-wearing heat-transfer graphics

Educational benefits

Learners can name vehicles, sort them by where they travel and discuss their roles in a community. Counting, ordering by size and comparing speed or capacity at a simple conceptual level add early maths and reasoning opportunities.

The Getting Around supports learning through observation and explanation. Adults can invite children to identify a detail, make a connection or explain why a piece belongs in a chosen group. Open questions allow more than one thoughtful answer and encourage learners to use relevant vocabulary.

Fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination

Grasping, standing, stacking and positioning the wooden pieces gives children repeated opportunities to use controlled hand movements. They coordinate what they see with where each figure or block is placed, adjust its balance and use both hands when building a larger arrangement.

Moving vehicles along a route, parking them and standing them beside buildings supports accurate placement. These purposeful actions support fine motor skills, manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination while keeping attention on the play idea.

Imaginative play and language development

Children can plan a journey, answer an emergency call, deliver passengers or launch a rocket. Adding roads, buildings or people supplied separately expands the narrative while the vehicles remain the focus.

The Getting Around provides concrete prompts for storytelling without prescribing a single result. Children can name characters or locations, decide what happens first and connect events into a sequence. Adults can model new words and extend a story with questions while leaving children in control of the direction.

Social and communication skills

Shared transport play creates natural reasons to take turns, agree routes and explain destinations.

During shared play, learners can listen to different ideas, negotiate where pieces belong and combine individual contributions into one scene. This supports turn-taking, expressive language and collaborative problem-solving in a natural play context.

Benefits for early years, schools and home learning

In nurseries and reception settings, the Getting Around can enhance small-world provision, topic work, language activities and continuous provision. Practitioners can offer the complete set for open-ended play or select a smaller group of pieces for focused matching, sorting and discussion.

At home, the set provides durable, screen-free educational play for children and adults to share. The set is a useful addition to transport topics, community learning and small-world provision, and it pairs naturally with wooden roads or blocks already available. Additional books, blocks and scenery can extend the activity, although they are not included unless listed in the specifications.

Why choose Getting Around

Choose the Getting Around for its combination of robust wooden construction, meaningful educational detail and flexible play possibilities. Its broad mix of land, air, water and space transport supports richer comparison and storytelling than a single vehicle type, while the thick pine pieces are made for repeated handling. The set can support a focused adult-led activity one day and become part of an entirely child-created world the next.

Product features

• Encourages learning through play and first-hand exploration
• Supports vocabulary, storytelling and imaginative thinking
• Develops fine motor control through grasping and placement
• Suitable for independent, paired and small-group activities
• Durable illustrated wooden format for repeated use

Specifications

• Product name: Getting Around
• Brand: Freckled Frog
• Product code: FF-471
• Contents: 16 illustrated transport pieces
• Dimensions: Largest approximately 19 x 5 cm; smallest approximately 3.5 x 3 cm; all 2 cm thick
• Material: Sustainably sourced New Zealand pine
• Graphics: Hard-wearing heat transfers
• Indoor/Outdoor: Indoor learning and imaginative play
• Batteries: Not required
• Learning focus: Transport, community roles, classification, early maths, imaginative play, language and fine motor skills
• Recommended age: 2 years+