Tag: fingerpaint

Painting with Baby Food

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Painting with Baby Food (4)

We had a few leftover jars of early-stage baby food (i.e. smooth purees) that Veronika will never eat at this point. So we decided to paint with them instead!

I laid down a long piece of butcher paper and poured two colors (er, flavors) of baby food onto paper plates. We had yellow/peach paint and purple paint.

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At first I thought we would use this like finger paint, but Veronika was already playing with her toy cars this morning and it turned into car painting, instead! I showed her how to drive a car through a plate, and then along the paper.

She didn’t waste any time, and soon was happily vrooming. I loved that she talked about colors while she played, too. “Red car makes yellow tracks! Blue car makes purple tracks!”

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Your child might want to get in there with fingers instead of cars, which of course is perfectly fine since this is an edible paint. And there’s a high probability that the paint might turn into snack time, too!

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After she was done driving the cars around, Veronika decided they needed a car wash. I set down a tray filled with a little sudsy water and she spent arguably just as long driving the cars through the wash as she had painting with them. All in all it was a nice activity for our morning.

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Finger Paint with Pudding Cups

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Edible Paint with Pudding Cups (4)

We love making “paint” that’s good enough to eat, and today’s version was super-quick. Use store-bought vanilla pudding and the cups themselves make the perfect paint pots!

Zen company makes vegan pudding cups, though in a pinch, you can whip up a homemade batch and divide among ramekins. Still, I preferred store-bought here because of those individual pudding cups.

I wanted rich, deep colors for the paint, so used 20 drops of food coloring for each pudding cup. For purple, mix 10 drops of red + 10 drops of blue.

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I then laid down a big sheet of craft paper as Veronika’s canvas and set the pots around my little artist.

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She instantly asked, “Can I eat it?” Needless to say, the eating of the paint was way more fun than the painting with it. I quickly switched from paint brushes to spoons once I realized she wasn’t going to stop taste-testing.

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I did show her how to draw a few images with the paint, like flowers and a blue sky, but snacking won out.

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To mix it up, next I taped construction paper to the high chair tray, and this time I poured on blobs of the pudding paint.

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She dipped her hands in and did some swirling around.

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Needless to say, though, she still preferred to snack than to paint! So this was a delicious activity, if not a terribly artistic one.

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Cool Whip Painting

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Cool Whip Painting (5)

What’s better than finger paint in the bath tub? Edible finger paint in the bath tub of course!

When I spotted this brilliant (and delicious) idea, I knew it would be worth the mess. For a vegan cool whip, try Whole Foods’ non-dairy whipped topping from the freezer aisle. Let thaw in the refrigerator about 3 hours prior to this activity and it will be the perfect consistency when you’re ready to play.

I divided the whipped topping evenly among the tins of a large muffin tray. Add drops of food coloring to each cup.

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To get the full rainbow, we mixed a few of our colors (red + yellow, blue + red). Older toddlers might enjoy helping with this step!

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Then I simply stripped Veronika down to a diaper, handed her a paint brush and set her loose in the tub. She immediately started painting.

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“A rainbow!” she said, even though she only had one line of color. What a perfect idea, so I started to paint stripes in rainbow order on the side of the tub. Some of the paint dripped onto her leg as a result. “Oh no!” she said, but I assured her it was okay because this paint was edible.

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She looked at me with surprise; usually I chide her not to eat paint, ha! So I dipped a finger in and held it up to her tongue. “Yummy!” she said with absolute delight.

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“Try blue?” So I dipped a finger in blue for her. “Try green?” You get the idea. Well clearly we were going to need plastic spoons!

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After this it became more feast than art project. At this point, big brother Travis needed to join in. He loved both taste-testing and smearing the paint on the tub with a brush.

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He even tried turning it into body paint!

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Meanwhile, I kept using the paintbrushes around my happy diners. This little fish was swimming right on the bottom of the ocean.

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Clean up was surprisingly easy. Strip everyone down and run the water and rinse (humans and tub alike). Travis even loved using a washcloth to scrub the walls until they were sparkly clean.

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Shaving Cream Fingerpaint

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Shaving Cream Fingerpaint (11)

There’s more to this activity than just the sensory fun of shaving cream or the artistic fun of colors and “painting”; half the fun was doing the activity right on the tabletop!

I squirted about half a can of shaving cream onto the kids’ table, which immediately piqued everybody’s interest, Veronika and big brother alike.

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The curiosity grew once I added drops of food coloring throughout.

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Now it was time for the real sensory fun to begin! I demonstrated for Veronika that she could put her hands right in the mixture, either to swirl the colors around or just to get messy.

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Interestingly, she was hesitant at first, but soon a little finger dipped in. Foamy!

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The sensation must have made her quite happy because it merited a little swirling dance.

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After that, though, I couldn’t quite tell if she liked the shaving cream or was a little afraid of it. She did lots of delicate dabbing, but never got as messy as I had anticipated.

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Big brother Travis tried his hand gladly and liked creating “animal footprints” through the shaving cream.

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Veronika preferred just having some of the shaving cream on her palms. She smooshed her hands together and admired both the creaminess and the color left behind. Then it was time to wash! And the shaving cream mixture wipes off of the table like a dream.

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Overall, this wasn’t the best version of fingerpainting we’ve done as far as producing art. But it was still a great sensory experience.

 

Bathtub Fingerpainting

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Bathtub Fingerpainting (2)

If your toddler loves to fingerpaint but you worry about the mess, here’s the perfect solution: Get messy exactly where you’re going to clean off afterwards!

To wit, I stripped Veronika down to her diaper and sat her in a dry bathtub, then squirted generous amounts of fingerpaint on the tub walls. I used blue, yellow and green, which meant we had the possibility of playing with all three separately, or watching the blue and yellow combine into a new green.

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Veronika was hesitant at first, but the colors soon proved irresistible. Once her hands were messy, she began making big smears on the walls. She loved making a big mess with it…

 

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…but also loved being more deliberate, dipping in one finger and then swirling color carefully on the tub or the tiles.

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Or admiring the way the colors looked on her fingers.

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It all looked like so much fun that big brother Travis jumped in to paint, too!

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When her masterpiece was complete, I pressed a piece of newspaper over the fingerpaint, allowing us to capture a memento of the project.

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Needless to say we made a huge mess.

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But we were exactly where we needed to be to rinse off…kids and tub both!

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Finger Paint Easter Egg

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Finger Paint Easter Egg (6)

On the heels of her first Easter craft, Veronika made an equally easy toddler-friendly Easter egg today. This one requires only poster board and finger paint.

I initially thought to set up the activity outside, given a nice day of sunshine. You’ll notice the pack of wipes on hand for easy clean-up, a must whenever you use finger paint!

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After cutting an egg shape from white poster board, I squirted a few colors of finger paint out onto at ray and briefly demonstrated how she could dip a finger in the paint, and then press on the egg.

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I also squirted some of the paint directly onto the egg shape, thinking she might want to swirl it around with her whole palm. But after a moment to check it out, the outdoors proved far too distracting!

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So we moved the activity inside, where she was able to pay more attention. This time she dipped her fingertips into the paint. I can’t say she loved the craft, but she did make enough markings on a full sheet of poster board that I could cut out a smaller egg shape around it.

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So we ended up with mommy-and-me Easter eggs, which I think are pretty cute! For preschoolers, have fun making deliberate lines or patterns with the finger paint, to add a little education into the mix.

Finger-Paint Art

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Finger-Paint Art (9)

I’m getting braver when it comes to Veronika and art, but as a safety measure, it’s still a good idea to keep art materials contained or edible at this age. This edible finger-paint is a cinch to whip up!

To make the paint, combine 4 tablespoons boiling water and 4 tablespoons cornstarch, mixing well with a whisk.

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Continue to add boiling water just until the paint looks like heavy cream. Divide among 4 cups and add food coloring. Let cool completely.

I stripped Veronika down to her diaper and taped a large piece of craft paper to the table (precautions are still necessary to avoid a huge mess) and sat down with Veronika on my lap.

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I showed her how to dip her fingers or whole hand into the cups of paint, and then press onto the paper. She seemed hesitant at first…

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…but soon was smearing away!

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My hope had been to get some nice finger- or handprints that could be transformed into little pictures. Alas, most of hers were too messy, so I made a mommy handprint and turned it into a little turkey with markers.

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Drawing flowers or bugs or any other creation would be cute, too! Another fun idea was dipping some fabric into the paint, and then smearing this all over our paper.

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Once we had lots of nice blobs, I folded the paper in half and then opened back up again to introduce the notion of symmetry.

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And then the art lesson was done and it was time for clean up and new clothes!

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Sign Your Name

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SIgn Name (3)

Learning to read and write your name are key pre-K skills, and ones which I know Travis’s teachers are going to emphasize this year. He has name recognition down, but writing it himself is a bit harder. Before school starts tomorrow (!) we made writing practice fun, working on his name in three different ways.

First, tear two strips of paper – colored construction paper made this more exciting than standard white.

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Going one letter at a time, I spelled out Travis’s name, and had him copy each letter after me. This was really useful so I could see which letters came easier (T, v) and which were a bit of a struggle (a, s).

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Then we upped the ante with a little bit of sensory play. Squirt out fingerpaints (or shaving cream even!) onto paper or another surface, and make a nice smeared frame that you can write in.

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Travis used the handle of a paintbrush to trace each letter this time. He got a bit frustrated since not all of the letters showed up clearly, but here was my example version:

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Finally, chalk! This method was his favorite of the three, and once again I wrote each letter first, then had him fill in underneath.

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Not only did this reinforce handwriting, but also the order that the letters of his name go in.

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What other fun ways does your preschooler practice writing his or her name? Please share in the comments!