Paint Activity for Sense of Touch

Inside: This rainbow art activity is all about the process as toy cars are driving through colored shaving cream. A hands-on lesson on color mixing!

Our toddlers and preschoolers love anything involving cars.

If they can drive them through paint, even better.

We’ve used this technique with small cars, Duplos, even farm vehicles!

But probably what was loved most was when we made rainbow roads with small cars.

In fact, that was our inspiration for the activity I’m sharing today: Shaving cream rainbow art.

This fun process art activity is very similar to our rainbow roads, except we added some extra sensory fun by adding shaving cream.

It was a hit, just as I expected.

Ready to see how it’s done?

Shaving Cream Rainbow Art

Supplies needed:

Shaving cream
Liquid watercolors
Toy cars
Large sheets of paper

Note: If you cannot use shaving cream in your facility, go with our rainbow roads activity that only uses tempera paint.

Setting it up:

I wanted this shaving cream rainbow art to be a group activity, so we covered our entire table with butcher paper. (We chose yellow, but you can use white or another bright color.)

Make sure to tape the ends to the table so the paper doesn’t slide. You also might want to remove the chairs to the children can walk around the table while driving their cars.

Squirt puddles of shaving cream on different areas of the paper. Squirt different colors onto each puddle.

The activity:

Explain to the children that they are going to drive their cars through each puddle of colored shaving cream.

Hand each of them a car and invite them to start driving.

As the children are driving their cars through the different colors of shaving cream, as them if they are seeing new colors.

You can extend this activity to include cars with different sizes of wheels, such as the monster truck shown above.

As the tracks are made, ask the children if they can figure out which were left by small wheels. How about large?

This is not only a fun sensory activity, but it also strengthens fine motor skills as the children use their hands to push the cars around.

I’ve been asked what I do with group art activities once they are finished.

Answer: I will either hang the entire piece in the classroom or I will cut the large piece into sections so the children can take a part of their group work home.

But what’s most important in this activity is the actual process.

Simple fun!