Paper Towel Roll Car Ramp

Do you have a chair at your house? What about a paper towel or toilet paper roll? You are just about ready to rock this activity.

This activity is perfect if you ever have a day that is too rainy/hot/cold to go outside. Or maybe you are just tired, trying to do laundry, trying to work, trying to workout, or any of the million other things that you multitask. There are moments or days when I need space to calm my brain or get something accomplished, I don’t want to clean up a messy activity, or am unable to give 100% of my attention to ensure no paint ends up on the ceiling.

This activity is mess free and so quick to set up! No special materials required, and you can definitely set up and stand back as needed on this one.

Here’s what you need

• Chair. We have kid sized chairs that have flat back supports and these were perfect. The green chair pictured we picked from the free pile at the end of last school year because the classrooms were getting new furniture. It doesn’t match and needs a new coat of paint, but it is weirdly turning into my favorite kid chair.

• Paper towel or toilet paper rolls.

• Tape. We used painter’s tape, but you could use masking tape for gift wrap tape if that is the only thing you had available.

• Toy cars. We have a few trucks that were just too tall, so stick to actual cars here.

Set up

2 minutes

1. Collect your paper towel and toilet paper rolls. This doesn’t take long in our house!

2. Flip your chair over and tape the rolls to the back of the chair.

Clean up

1 minute

1. Take off toilet paper and paper towel rolls. Throw away tape and recycle rolls if able.

2. Flip chair over…or don’t. Up to you.

This activity allowed some good hand strength and coordination practice with the tape ripping, spatial awareness with orienting and planning the location of each roll, and good visual motor skills with placing the cars in the ramp. And to be honest, it was pretty fun to see how fast these cars went. The height of your chair will impact how fast you can launch your vehicles.

The kids liked switching out cars and trying different setups for the ramps to see what combination would go fastest or farthest. I’m not really sure there was a clear winner in our house, but it was fun to see their minds thinking that way.

The kids had a blast with this! And although I do love a good sensory bin activity, some days I just don’t want to wash anything extra in the sink or wipe up any more water than I have to.

I also intentionally change up the materials we play with and love to repurpose household materials that would otherwise be thrown away. Some of our most creative days start with seemingly boring materials and I love to witness imaginations blossom!

What do you think? This low cost, easy to set up activity is perfect to keep in your back pocket for a rainy day. I hope it carves out some space for you like it did for me!

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