• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

  • Home
  • Start Here
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Printables Terms of Use
  • Subscribe!
  • Printables
    • Free Printables
    • Fall Printable Packets
    • Winter Printable Packs
    • Spring Printable Packets
    • Circle Time Printable Packets
    • Fine Motor Printable Packets
    • Dramatic Play Printable Packs
    • Literacy and Story Time Printable Packets
    • Color Recognition Printable Packets
  • Preschool
  • Toddlers
  • Lesson Plans
    • Preschool Lesson Plans
    • Toddler Lesson Plans
You are here: Home / Art / Toy Car Color Mixing for Toddlers

This post might contain affiliate links. Click here for more information. Thanks for visiting!

Toy Car Color Mixing for Toddlers

January 29, 2011 by Sheryl Cooper

Share
Pin
Tweet
Email

Inside: What happens when you drive toy cars through puddles of yellow and blue paint? This color mixing activity for toddlers is all about action at the art table!

Toddlers are busy, busy, busy. I can see all you parents and toddler teachers nodding!

So you’ve probably noticed that they don’t like to sit for very long, preferring to be moving.

This is why I love to provide art activities with action.

I also love using materials that young children love. This draws them to the art table!

While putting together a simple color mixing activity for toddlers, I decided to involve toy cars.

What happens when you drive a car through puddles of yellow and blue paint?

This is what we discovered while driving cars all around the paper!

color mixing activity for toddlers

Using What They Love

Toddlers love anything on wheels.

I realized early in my teaching career that cars and trucks were probably one of the biggest hits with anything we did.

That includes art!

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you’ve seen some fun ways we’ve added cars with paint, including:

  • Rainbows
  • Hearts
  • Roads

We’ve painted with:

  • Firetrucks
  • Duplo Vehicles
  • Tractors
  • Small Cars

Every single time I add vehicles to the art table, even the children who don’t normally love art come running!

Fine Motor Benefits

I am often asked how we can get the hands ready for writing. Even with toddlers.

My answer?

Activities that get their hands and fingers moving. Especially those that offer big motions, using the entire arm and shoulder.

Toddlers love the larger movements with big sheets of paper.

Remove those chairs and let them walk around the table while they are driving the cars.

Busy toddlers love this!

It’s All About the Process

I’ve said it many, many times, and it bears repeating.

Activities that focus on the process itself rather than the final product offer many benefits for young children.

I always pay attention to the actual activity and its benefits, not what the final result looks like.

In fact, with this particular activity we didn’t even save it. I took a picture to send to the parents and that was it.

(But you can save pieces of it to send home, if you wish. Just cut the large finished product into squares and send one home with each child.)

toddler preschool process art
color mixing activity for toddlers

Toy Car Color Mixing Activity for Toddlers

CLICK HERE for more activities using toy cars!

Supplies:

  • Butcher paper (to cover the table) OR individual large sheets of paper
  • Tape (to secure ends of butcher paper to table)
  • Blue tempera paint
  • Yellow tempera paint
  • Toy cars

Set Up:

If using one sheet of butcher paper, cut it to the size of your art table and tape the ends to the table.

If using single sheets of large paper, place on table.

Place toy cars on table and squirt puddles of blue and yellow paint on various parts of the paper.

color mixing activity for toddlers

Invitation to Mix Paint

Point out to your children that there is yellow and blue paint on the paper.

Have them take a car and drive it through both colors, over and over again.

What color are they making?

color mixing activity for toddlers

Not much direction is needed with this color mixing activity. Just push and pull cars through paint, making tracks!

color mixing activity for toddlers

If you are using butcher paper, encourage your children to drive all over the paper. This creates those big movements I was talking about earlier. This gets the entire arm and shoulder moving!

color mixing activity for toddlers

If you have children who want to do this for quite awhile (as we did!), you might need to freshen the paint. We squirted more paint on the paper as needed.

color mixing activity for toddlers

Lots of big movements as the color green is being made!

color mixing activity for toddlers
color mixing activity for toddlers

More Activities for Toddlers

Rainbow Art

Dinosaur Tracks 

Golf-Ball Painted Pigs on the Farm

color mixing activity for toddlers
tpt dot art stamping sheets shapes
TPT Dot Letter & Number Printables
TPT short tracing words

FREE CIRCLE TIME PLANNER!

Get your FREE circle time planner as a gift when you subscribe to my free weekly newsletters.

Here is my Privacy Policy

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit
Share
Pin
Tweet
Email

Filed Under: Art, Toddlers Tagged With: art, toddlers

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Previous Post: « Learn the Alphabet With Our ABC Box
Next Post: How to Make a Spin Art Spider Craft »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Deborah

    January 29, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    I love all the bright colors of paint and love the motor skills this painting invites! Too fun!

  2. Bonna

    January 30, 2011 at 2:03 am

    Great way to get “physical” with art!

  3. Scott

    January 31, 2011 at 12:32 am

    We love this activity. My kindergartners have done this with golf balls and marbles. They really enjoy it, too.

  4. Kristi @ Creative Connections for Kids

    February 1, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    This is awesome. I would love to have you share this idea or another favorite on my linky at http://www.creativeconnectionsforkids.com

    We are trying to stay busy during a snow storm. 🙂

    🙂 Kristi

  5. Jucad Golftrolley

    April 26, 2011 at 6:26 am

    Balls are sold each year worldwide. It is also estimated that somewhere between 125 million and 500 million balls used are recycled or recovered and sold to the world of golf – golf balls drawn mainly from ponds and lakes on the golf course (aka “Lake Balls”). It is not known how many more Lake Balls claimed, and games during the regular round of golf. And even though the exact number of balls sold are used continues to be weak, it is clear that billions of new balls have come to play in recent years all over the world, and many of them end up in lost and found items such as balls lake are Teed and over again.

Primary Sidebar

You can also find us here!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Looking for something specific?

Categories

Welcome! I'm Sheryl Cooper, teacher of 2 and 3 year olds for over 22 years. Read more about me here!

More Printables!

preschool printables

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds is a participant in Amazon Associates.
Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2022 Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds · Privacy Policy