How to make a simple toilet roll tube tractor

Harry is loving his tractors at the moment, but I couldn't find any simple crafts ideas for actually making a tractor, so I came up with this one. We made little tractors using just an empty toilet roll tube and two milk bottle lids, along with glue and paint to decorate. I think they're really sweet!

You just need a cardboard tube (I used an old toilet roll tube) and a couple of milk bottle lids, with glue or tape, paint and scraps of paper to decorate.

Take your toilet roll tube and cut two slits, each 6cm long and about 4cm apart. Try and make the cuts in a part of the toilet roll tube that doesn't have any overlapping card. Then bend the flap upwards. Cut the top 2cm from the flap and coil this around to make the funnel. From underneath the flap cut off two curved strips, each about 1/2 cm wide. Coil these around to make the two front wheels. Secure these parts with glue or sellotape.

Paint the different parts of the tractor. Then assemble the pieces. I used a glue gun but you could also use PVA glue, it just takes longer to dry. I made a little front window from pale blue card. The paint doesn't stick to the sellotape very well, if you wanted to improve the look of your tractor you could cover the pieces with coloured paper, or just use glue to join the ends together.

Is your toddler obsessed with tractors? There are lots more tractor crafts, activities and resources here!