Messy Play – Painting with trains

What with the weather being so hot at the moment (London in ‘NO RAIN SHOCKER’!), I’ve been looking for activities that F & S could do outside in the shade. Taking  inspiration from Pinterest, I set up a ‘painting with trains’ activity for my tiny twosome.

Retrieving our ‘tuff spot’ from the garage, I lined it with plain roller paper, and squeezed different coloured blobs of paint around the outside.

Using some of their older, metal trains (these clean up easier than the wooden ones), we put each one in a blob of paint, and then I let both Freddie and Sasha go mad with them on the paper! Freddie was in his element, and being a MASSIVE train fan, was almost beside himself that there was yet again something new that he could do with his beloved trains! Sasha was also keen, and enjoyed mixing the paints up using the trains, before chugging them across the paper.

Whilst I mostly just let them get on with it, we did talk about whether or not the trains were going slowly or quickly and what sort of lines they were making (straight, thick, thin, wiggly, curved…).

Freddie created imaginary games with the trains he was using- at one point they were both having a “race to the rainbow”! I love how something as simple as this can really spark their imaginations.

Painting with trains has been requested every day since. I’m currently weighting up which is messier- this, or our ‘Trams in the snow’ activity!

What messy play do your little ones like in warm weather?

‘Let Kids Be Kids’