Touch A Truck

Touch A Truck events are locally held all across North America, and probably further abroad as well. The basic premise of a Touch a Truck event is to give children the ability to learn about and interact with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. The events are typically free, and put on by a local children's group, or possibly a museum or other educational facility that is hosting it.

The events we've attended have been put on by EarlyOn, which is an Ontario based drop-in program for early education and literacy.

The events generally draw a decent crowd of parents and children, and consequently there's normally a few extra activities for kids, such as colouring stations, face painting, etc. The main draw however is the vehicles.

The ones we've attended have had a wide variety of trucks on site. The standard transport truck in a couple of forms is guaranteed to be present, so children taking turns on it's horn is a constant sound. The emergency services tend to be well represented, with Police, Fire and Paramedics all on site and offering both the ability to climb into the vehicles and of course try the lights and siren. The emergency services in particular are pretty good about offering additional education, with staff who obviously enjoy doing "show and tell" with their gear being chosen to attend.

Other vehicles on offer are quite varied, from local race track participants, to sanitation vehicles, to heavy machinery such as dump trucks and loaders, there's typically a variety of vehicles to explore.

Because it's meant to be a hands on activity, the children are encouraged to climb into the front and back of the vehicles, sit in the driver's seat for a photo, try the horn and so on.

Aside from the local businesses and emergency services that partake, depending on your proximity to a military base or reservists, you may find your local armed forces or coast guard present as well.

There's no centralized listing of Touch a Truck events, so if you want to find one in your area, your best bet is to talk to local children's groups and family programs to see if they know of any.