Texture Finger Painting

We offered the children a textured fingerpainting experience today by adding dry elements to various colours of paint. 

Dried oatmeal...

Uncooked rice...

Uncooked quinoa...

It was so much fun to get our hands dirty and create with this messy mixture. We used complimentary colours so that when they mixed new colours were created. 

A word of warning for those who try this -  we had our children rinse their hands in a bucket before washing at the sink so we didn't clog the sink with the paint mixture. 

Outdoor Finger Painting

Today we found another use for our acrylic outdoor easel! I love to encourage the children to finger paint but sometimes it can get so messy. Instead of using a flat paper surface, we dribbled finger paint on our outdoor acrylic easel.

The paint was thick enough to stay on the acrylic, giving Caleb an interesting surface to paint on. Usually finger painting is done on a horizontal surface, and he seemed to appreciate the challenge of experiencing it done vertically instead!

The sunlight shone through the paint and illuminated it, much like when one finger paints on a light table. It reminded us of beautiful stained glass.

Clean up was easy! We just sprayed it with the hose. Don't have an outdoor acrylic easel? What about trying this on windows? (maybe perform a spot check first...just in case!)

First Marks: Overcoming our fear of messiness

Our nine month old baby noticed a bit of food drop on his tray when I was feeding him the other day. Instinctively he reached out to grab at it and was amazed when he wasn't able to hold the mush but instead succeeded in smearing the food on his tray. This important discovery was the first in his lifetime of writing - the observation that his actions could leave a mark on something. He was eager to continue dabbing at the food.

I was also eager to encourage him in this inquiry - what would happen when he was provided a large drop of smashed carrots?  After I spooned them onto the tray he looked at me with surprise and tentatively reached out to touch them.

It didn't take long for the grabs to become swipes as both of his hands explored.

Much to his delight I added another scoop of food - peas - and he was able to explore two different colours of edible 'finger paint'.

His first instinct is to put anything in his mouth, but I noticed with this experience that he was more interested in exploring the food on his tray. He ran his fingers and hands over and over through the food and was very interested in watching what happened. I modelled some swirls for him using my fingers to draw in the food first and then swirling together with him hand-over-hand.

His first writing experience was a success and I know how meaningful providing early literacy experiences like this are for babies. I'm hoping to do this again soon!

Often people are uneasy with a little mess in their lives. As a kindergarten teacher I have heard time and time again a fear expressed by adults over kids becoming too messy if they play with paint, clay, and mud. However embedded deep within these messy experiences (other than the pure joy of being messy) is an understanding of how the world around us works and a desire to continue to master these experiences in a quest for knowledge.

If you don't believe me, just ask Quinn!

Contained Finger Painting

Providing opportunities for children to explore materials like paint with their hands/fingers is an important developmental experience. It encourages fine motor strengthening and control, creative expression, and early experiences with mark making. When children are encouraged to make marks with different materials, they develop experience and interest in pre-writing behaviours - realizing that they have the ability to permanently record something tangible that can be observed, discussed, and interpreted by others. This behaviour is an important milestone for children who are learning to write. Early marks will eventually turn into drawings and as children share the 'story' behind each drawing, they will come to understand that these pictures can also be explained in oral and written words. (Schickendanz, J.A. & Collins, M.F. (2013). So much more than the ABCs: The early phases of reading and writing. National Association for the Education of Young Children)

I love to encourage children to draw and finger print in paint but know that many people are reluctant to encourage this due to the extreme messiness that is natural with the activity.  In order to contain the paint and still encourage free exploration, we used our portable water table as the canvas for our work.

Caleb selected some complimentary colours of washable paint (anything else will be much harder to clean) to use in the bin.

At first he was interested in using various painting tools to explore the paint.

I encouraged him to use all the space in the bin, including the inside walls.

Of course any kind of paint with young children will often turn to finger painting and because I wasn't worried about the messiness of this activity, I encouraged him to explore painting his hands with the various brushes.

Even though the paint was repeatedly swirled together, the complimentary colours blended into a beautiful shade of aqua green and was still appealing to use.

The paint was cool and felt so smooth and Caleb spent a long time exploring it.

This activity was fun and so easy to do! An easy way to save any pictures or printing done in the paint is to lightly press a piece of large paper against it and make a print of the work. This way children's experiences can still be saved for classroom display or portfolio use.

When we were done we simply washed the bin out in our tub. Any large water/tactile table would work well for including many children at once. Smaller bins could also be placed together on a table top with many different colour combinations.

Candy Cane Paint

We had a great time today painting with candy cane paint - a mixture that will appeal to multiple senses!  All you need is shaving cream, mint/peppermint extract, and red food colouring. 

Squirt some shaving cream into a bowl...

...add a few drops of the extract and food colouring...

...and swirl together lightly to achieve a candy cane striped appearance. Do not over mix the ingredients or the candy cane effect will be lost.

This paint is so irresistible - it looks wonderful, smells delicious, and is so soft and squishy to touch! We enjoyed painting with it on the easel. Because it's easy to clean up, it's great when painted by brushes or as a fingerpaint.

I plan on making another batch for when we do painting in the tub again!

Tub Painting

Such a fun and easy way to encourage creative exploration and play during bath time that is super easy to clean too!

We used a plastic veggie tray for our palate.

The kids helped me to squirt a bit of shaving cream in each section.

Using a few drops of food colouring, they chose different colour combinations to try.

We used paint brushes to stir the colours and shaving cream together to see what colours were created.

The tray actually floated on the water!

They had lots of fun painting all over themselves and the walls of the tub. (You might want to do a spot check the first time you paint to make sure the colour doesn't stain your tiles or grout.)

We used thick paint brushes this time but we've also tried other art tools like sponges.

Super easy to clean when done...just rinse the walls and tub with warm water. It smells great too!

This is easily modified for the classroom where children can paint in a half-filled water table, tiled wall and sink area, or the clear lid of a tactile table!