Toilet Paper Roll – Cars Activity

These Recycled toilet roll or toilet tube kids craft is lots of fun to make and even more, fun to play with.

Add this activity to a storybook reading and you have yourself a very easy lesson plan that has the potential for hours of creation and play. Once these cars are made the kids can use their imagination for pretend play as well as using it to create stories for older kids.

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Books about Race Cars (or with race cars in them!):

Good Night Racecar –

Race Car Count –

Go Dog Go –

Supplies:

Empty toilet paper or paper towel cardboard tube
Tempra paint
Paint brush
Paper Plate
Hot Glue
Scissors

Instructions:

If using a paper towel tube, cut it in half.

Draw an oval shape in the middle of the tube. Carefully cut it out! Kids might need help with this step! This will be the driver’s seat area.

Trace one end of the cardboard tube on a paper plate and cut it out. Once cut, decorate it with markers (or paint) to be the grill of the car.

On a paper plate (or if you have a thick cardstock that would work!) cut out 4 circles for the tires, a small circle for the steering wheel and a seat shape. I told our kids to cut out a large, skinny hill shape and they cut out perfect race car seats! 🙂

Paint time! You can use anything you want to decorate your cars. We used paint. Paint your car, tires, steering wheel and seat. (Be sure to paint both sides!) Decorate the side of the car with craft supplies or draw on numbers and designs. Allow to dry.

To assemble: Glue the grill to the front of the toilet paper tube. It should fit nicely!

Glue on the 4 tires to the bottom of your car. You will want your car to kind of stand a bit.

A small dab of glue on the steering wheel to place on the front edge of the oval shape you cut out. And slide the seat into the driver’s area.

Ta da!

Did you know that more than eight billion rolls of toilet paper, bath tissue or toilet tissue as it is sometimes referred to are sold yearly in the U.S.A. It is guesstimated that the average person uses 23 rolls each per year. I don’t know about you but that seems a little low to me.

Recently we changed to the thick rolls which are triple length, so now we only have to change them a 1/3 as often, which is great cause no one in the house changes the toilet roll except me.

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

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