Several of my kids LOVE art, and the painting center is always a popular one in the afternoons! Lately, we have been experimenting with color mixing and learning that primary colors can be mixed to create other colors that we know and love! Since paintbrushes are our usual method, we decided to really change things up and “drive” with our paint this time by using toy cars! If you have kids who love toy cars AND love painting, this is definitely an activity for them!
Color Mixing With Toy Cars
Setting this up was a cinch! I first put some paint on two paper plates. I wanted a white background at first for them to really see the color mixing, but trays and paint cups are great to use also, that way you can wash and reuse!
I used Crayola finger paints. They are super washable, and with this activity some paint on hands is inevitable! Any other washable paint should do the trick as well, just roll up those sleeves!
I put yellow paint on one plate, and blue on the other. Then, to my kids’ surprise, I stuck a car on each plate!
If you ask who wants to take the car for a test drive, you can bet you will have volunteers!
First up on the paper was the yellow car. We drove it all around until we had a good amount of yellow on the paper.
What will happen if we drive the blue car over it? I asked this question to see if anyone had any predictions. Then, after some think time, I asked if we were ready to drive the blue car.
There was a definite yes to that! So, away we drove!
After driving the blue car around the yellow several times, we noticed that we were beginning to see…. GREEN!
This was a perfect time to talk and learn about how adding more blue or more yellow changed the color of the green. Plus, driving the cars and dipping them in paint is just plain fun!
We tried another by mixing red and yellow. We were thrilled to see a peek of orange!
It may sound messy to paint with cars, and I guess it kind of is, but sometimes play is messy! The paint was super easy to wash off the kids AND the cars, and cleanup was literally less than 5 minutes!
If you don’t want to have certain cars going in paint, I recommend maybe setting aside 4 or 5 in your paint center and letting kids drive them in paint – it is such a fun sensory experiment! It also is great for introducing colors and color mixing, as it would also happen naturally as you let them explore.
For more color themed fun, grab our printable color matching frogs or have a blast playing with a rainbow play dough kit!
More Learning Fun with Small Toys!
Toys can be used in so many ways! Check out all of the fun ways these awesome kid bloggers are using their favorite toys for learning!
Alphabet Car Wash from Learning 2 Walk
Sorting and Counting with Die-Cast Trains from Crafty Mama in ME
Directionality Activity with Small Cars from Teach Me Mommy
Forest Animals Letter Sounds Activity from Stir the Wonder
Learning Shapes with Toy Cars from Adventures of Adam
What Makes Ice Melt Fastest from Raising Little Superheroes
Fun DIY Phonics Game from Mum in the Madhouse
What Do Animals Eat? Classification Activity from Schooling a Monkey
Color Mixing with Toy Cars from The Kindergarten Connection
AM and PM Time Telling with Shopkins from Sugar Aunts
Sorting Animals Venn Diagram Activity from Mom Inspired Life
Hands-on Way to Learn Letter Sounds from School Time Snippets
Fairies & STEM Activities: Gardening with Kids from Edventures with Kids
Name & Letter Practice: A Painting With Toy Car Activity from Play Dough & Popsicles
Learning Letters & Reading With Cars! from Preschool Powol Packets
Shopkins Sorting from Still Playing School
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I love how accessible this is. It is such a fun activity.
Thanks so much Jen! 🙂
I love this. It brings back fond memories for me. My son would not touch paint whatsoever until I gave him a toy car to run through the paint and he has loved paint ever since!
Thank you! I think it’s so fun to try to find ways to make things exciting or different – and plus, like you mentioned with your son, it may encourage kids to try something new! 🙂