I recently introduced Veronika to the idea of stamping, by making Duplo prints. Today, we made sponge prints instead!

This was a great activity for outside on the patio, since first we needed to get the sponges wet. I misted them with a spray bottle until saturated, then showed her how to chalk all over the surface of the sponge.

Press down firmly on a piece of thick white paper and the mark of the sponge will be left behind. The sponges have a bubbled appearance, with more surface twists and turns than you might expect!

Next I cut a few of our sponges into shapes like hearts and plus signs.

She liked seeing the various shapes in our prints.

Then we discovered that if we used the chalk on wet pavement and then dipped the sponge in the colored water, we ended up with a more saturated print.

The wetter the sponge the better the print, so eventually we used a bucket of water to dip instead of the mister bottle.

Of course then Veronika just loved dipping the sponges in the bucket and squeezing them out, and lost interest in stamping!

But this just fine; it meant this craft was a great way to spend some time making art and simply playing outside.