Dec 12, 2009

LEGO car and DUPLO truck cardboard printables

Lego cardboard car printable.

So, you can buy the small LEGO wheels at the LEGO store by weight. We got one of the smallest tubs a while back. I think it was $7.99 and you could easily get 30 or more wheels in there.

I thought it would be nice to make a little cut out, punch and colour car to use with them (actually it works with our larger 1980s LEGO wheels too). I deliberately made the drawing of the car a simple shape that younger kids would find easy to cut out, and left the details on it minimal so that they could be creative with how it was decorated (I really want to glue sequins all over one, but then I kinda lurve art cars ;)

Anyhoo, here's the thumbnail that links to the full resolution image for printing. It prints on US letter sized paper and you just need a regular hole punch to make it work. 4 cars to a page.

Cut out your car, punch the holes and let the kids decorate them, then glue the tag to keep it closed.

I left the ends open for simplicity and also so that the kids can easily take the wheels on and off themselves.

DUPLO cardboard truck printable.

This one you don't even need a hole punch for, because you just cut out a rectangle for the wheeled base to fit through.

It's more likely that a grown up is going to have to cut and fold this one, but I made the design still simple, so the kids could decorate easily. I modified the print out from the one that you see in the pictures, so that there was a flap to fold up and glue at the front of the truck as well as the back.

We were lucky that we had this perfect little lego bit from a Dora set to use as the flat bed base, but any DUPLO would fit over the top fine.
As with the car template, the idea is pretty darn simple, so you could modify this to make a fire truck or a big rig or anything you fancy very easily. If people are interested and I do make other templates over time then I can scan them and pop them on the blog if you like.

Here's the thumbnail link to the template. US letter size paper again. Hopefully that isn't going to be so wide that it crops off on A4 paper. Let me know if that's a problem and I'll fix another template for people printing with A4.

Have fun and do let us know if you make your own versions. I'd love to link to them!

24 comments:

Lessons from the Boys said...

That is really neat, thanks for sharing!

anno said...

This is seriously the greatest thing I've seen in a long time. My 6 yr old is a lego fanatic....i can't wait to get started. Thanks for sharing (especially the templates, since we are all a bit artistically inept around here :) )

Unknown said...

My cousin sent a link to your page for the Melon Box Fairy House... and I've been snooping ever since. My 7-year old is completely bowled over with the punch out lego ideas, as am I. I'm so impressed with all you've posted. Keep it up, and THANK YOU! I love what you're doing!

Irene ~ RE~VINTAGED said...

Thank you a thousand times for your Lego ideas!!!

Kami@Nurturing the tender years said...

Awesome, thanks! :)

Sonja said...

I am just giddy over all the ideas you have posted! I found this darling lego man that kids could print and color.

http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/draw/f20060830/img/3.jpg

Lego people are one of my sons favorite aspects of lego play so he will have a ball coloring in his own!

Dawn said...

I just stumbled on your blog from a post in a post and my goodness I'm EXCITED!!! I'm going to have some excited little kids here when they find out what we can create! I linked you in my blog as well!
dawn:)
http://allaboutlearning101.blogspot.com/2009/12/legos-galore.html

Liz said...

These are great - great I say! My son is going to love this. He can finally have the pink lego car he's been dreaming of!

Kristine said...

You never fail to amaze. Thanks for the last two blogs!

Anonymous said...

My Name is Joy and I just wanted to say that you are a very talented and ingenious person! I can't believe what you come up with sometimes. You should have a meeting with the CEO of Lego/Duplo and present your ideas. When you become a millionair, please continue to post your fab ideas. Thanks for all your blessings!

Shauna said...

I too, just stumbled upon your blog, and I'm hooked! I am amazed at how many ideas you've come up with, using everday objects, recycleables etc. Keep up the awesome work!

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

awesome idea

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

ps...A4 crops the Duplo truck and the cutout was a bit smaller than our wheel blocks (easy fixed I might just enlarge it slightly)
Still what an awesome idea I can work on.
I will glue it to cardboard (like cereal box thickness for a bit more stability and let them colour or paint it.
Duct tape it together ;)...tomorrow !

kw said...

You are a genius!

Headmistress, zookeeper said...

These printed templates are going into my godsons stockings this Christmas and part of Christmas day will be spent coloring them and attaching them to Legos.

You have made an unbelievable number of children (and the grown ups who love them) very, very happy!

Mom Guide said...

You Are Awesome! I had planned on using this as a workbox section but pulled it out to beat the boredom of a sick/snow day.

In my six year old opinion "This is so cool!"

Thanks

Geek+Nerd said...

This is brilliant fun! I have some nephews that will love this!

Jackie said...

Oh, such a great idea!
: )
jackie.

Crafty Things said...

Thanks for sharing such a great idea. I used your template -slightly modified because of A4 printing problems - with my class to conduct an investigation into which lego wheels make the car travel the furthest distance.

Chrissy said...

Oh thank you so much for this awesome idea. It's been a pretty yucky day here and I was all out of ideas on what to do then I spotted these. We had so much fun making them and now the boys are playing construction with their trucks - they're taking extra blocks to the the work site and using them to build houses :)

Emily said...

First of all, I adore your blog. I'm not even sure how I found it, but I'm so glad I did!

I am a teaching a Recycled Art class for K-2 students right now and we start each class by working on our Junk City--a "city" we built with sheets of reused cardboard, empty boxes, modeling clay and myriad other stuff. Today we will be using these templates to make cars and trucks.

Your site is wonderful. Please keep up the good work!

~monica~ said...

I seem to be unable to print these to fit...can you help me figure out how to? lol...I'm feeling VERY deficient and I REALLY want to make these! They are amazing!

Wendy said...

In the area of printables, you should check out this site, it has printable coloring pages based on famous works of art, Native American Indian imagery, and even Mesoamerican art coloring pages!
http://www.artsology.com/aztec-mayan-coloring-pages.php

clneves said...

Hi There,

I would love to print these but I can't seem to figure out how. When I click on the image it just shows me a bigger picture but not a document. I would appreciate any help you could offer.

Thanks, Colleen
clneves@sd61.bc.ca