Mail Truck

Fit a shape block to drive the truck. Find the house by its number. Help Posty take the letter. For ages 3 to 5.

How hard?
For grown-ups

Your child drives a mail truck to the right house. A shape outline sits on each side of the truck, and the toy bin holds the matching blocks: drag a block into the outline on the side you want to go, or tap a block and then tap the outline. The truck drives one slow step that way. The voice says which house the letter is for ("Take the letter to house 3"), and each road ends at a house with a big number. A wrong turn is fine: the truck drives there, the voice says which house it is, and it comes back.

At the house, Posty the mailbox asks one small question before it opens its mouth: find a shape, count its letters, or (on Normal and Hard) find the letter a word starts with. Then Posty opens its mouth, the letter goes in, and the flag goes up. A round is 4 letters, then it stops on "All done". There is no losing, no timer and nothing to collect.

Child lock: tap the lock at the top right. The ways out hide and the back button stays in the game. To unlock, hold the lock for 3 seconds and answer a sum.

Easy (age 3): three roads, houses 1 to 5 with dots to count, outlines tinted like their blocks, and Posty asks about shapes and counting to 3. Normal (age 4): houses 1 to 10, plain outlines, and first sounds too. Hard (age 5): houses 1 to 20 and a fourth road going back. On a computer, the Tab and Enter keys pick a block and an outline.

Evening look (dimmer and warmer)

Why it's good for your child, what they learn, and how we designed it

Free, no ads, no sign-in. We count plays without names or anything that identifies your child, and your child is never recorded. Posty, the truck and the houses are our own drawings; the pictures for first sounds are Microsoft Fluent Emoji (MIT license).

Why it's good for your child

Children learn most from a screen when the play is active, engaged, meaningful and social (Hirsh-Pasek 2015), and a mail route is all of those for a preschooler: every move means something, and the goal is a friend waiting for a letter. Your child does the thinking that drives the truck, matching a shape to steer and reading a number to find the house. The line on the "All done" screen takes it outside to the house numbers on your own street, where talking together helps most (AAP, Zero to Three).

What they learn

Naming and matching shapes (circle, square, triangle, star, heart), the words forward, left, right and back, and reading house numbers from 1 to 20. Posty the mailbox adds counting to 5 and, on Normal and Hard, the first sound of everyday words. These match kindergarten Common Core K.G.A.2 (name shapes), K.G.A.1 (describe where things are with words like beside and in front of), K.CC.A.3 (read numerals 0 to 20) and K.CC.B.5 (count up to 20 things), with RF.K.3.a for first sounds.

How we designed it for ages 3 to 5

Easy has three roads, houses 1 to 5 with dots on the roof to count, and outlines tinted like their blocks, so a 3-year-old can start right away; Normal and Hard add bigger numbers, a fourth road and first sounds. The truck and Posty move one slow glide at a time and nothing loops, because 9 minutes of a fast cartoon lowered 4-year-olds' attention and self-control (Lillard & Peterson 2011), and the big moment at the mailbox is a calm mouth opening and a flag going up with one clear voice and no music (Bus, Takacs & Kegel 2015). At the right house the mail carrier hops out for a short walk of 2 to 4 big footsteps, one slow step and one counted number per tap, so driving stays the main part. A wrong turn just drives to that house and back with no buzzer, blocks can be dragged or tapped (precise dragging is hard under 5, Hiniker 2015), and a round stops after 4 letters with nothing to collect and no "one more" prompt (Radesky 2022).

About the game

Mail Truck is a free mail truck game for preschoolers, with no reading needed. Your child is the mail carrier: fit a shape block into the outline on the side of the truck to drive that way, find the house with the right number, and help Posty, a friendly talking mailbox, take the letter. One clear voice says every shape, number and turn.

How a round goes

The truck waits at a crossroads with a shape outline in front of it and on each side. Each road ends at a house with a big number. The voice says "Take the letter to house 3", and your child picks the block that fits the outline on the side of house 3. The truck drives there, the mail carrier hops out and your child taps the footsteps up the path (2 on Easy, 3 on Normal, 4 on Hard, each one counted out loud), Posty asks one small question (which shape is this, how many letters do I have, or which letter does bus start with), and then Posty opens its mouth for the letter and puts its flag up. After 4 letters the game stops on "All done".

Three levels

  • Easy, age 3: three roads, houses 1 to 5 with dots under each number to count, and outlines tinted like their blocks.
  • Normal, age 4: houses 1 to 10, plain outlines, and Posty may ask for a first sound.
  • Hard, age 5: houses 1 to 20 and a fourth road going back.

More: ABC Mailbox has Posty too, Shape Puzzles for more shapes, Counting to 20 for counting to 20, and preschool games.

Questions parents ask

Is the Mail Truck game free?

Yes. No sign-in, nothing to download or buy. It runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers.

What ages is it for?

Ages 3 to 5. Easy suits 3-year-olds (houses 1 to 5 with dots to count), Normal suits 4-year-olds (houses 1 to 10) and Hard suits 5-year-olds (houses 1 to 20 and a fourth road).

What happens when my child takes a wrong turn?

The truck simply drives there, the voice says which house it is and which one we need, and the truck comes back to try again. No buzzer, nothing to lose.

How long is a round?

4 letters to 4 houses, then the game stops on an All done screen with a line for you to talk about together. Nothing starts by itself.