Paint Play | learning 4 kids

Handprint Christmas Tree Craft

Posted by Janice on November 30, 2012 1 Comment

This Handprint Christmas Tree Craft is a great activity for kids and toddlers and it is so simple to do!

Creating a Christmas Tree using your kid’s painted handprints makes an adorable decoration for Christmas.

What You will need?

Green & yellow Paint

Paint brush

A3 coloured card

Glue stick

Large sheet white paper

How to make:

1. With the paint brush, apply green paint to an open hand.

2. Gently press hand onto the white paper. Repeat this until there are a sufficient number of green hand prints.

3. Wash and dry hands.

4. Apply yellow paint to the hands using a paint brush and press gently onto the paper.

5. When hand prints are dry, cut them out and position them into the shape of a tree.

6. When happy with the arrangement, glue onto the coloured card.

Tips & Ideas:

Glue on some buttons or pompoms for decorations.
You can also decorate your christmas tree with painted finger dots by placing your fingers into coloured paint and dots them onto the handprint christmas tree
There are 18 green painted hand prints and 2 yellow displayed in the photo.
Using the paint brush to apply the paint to the hands gives a more even coat when pressed onto the paper. There is no excess paint and less mess!

Sponge Painting

Posted by Janice on October 21, 2012 2 Comments

An activity that siblings of various ages can all do together at the same time!

Recently after going through some our craft supplies I came across a bag of cut up sponge pieces that we had used for a previous activity – Alphabet Sponge Bath.

I don’t like to waste anything so I thought I would set up an invitation to play with paint and these cut up sponge pieces for my girls to play freely and in an unstructured way.

It is always interesting to see the difference each child thinks creatively as they explore the paint and sponge pieces.

Let’s Play

The activity started off with using the sponges first; Miss 2 using the cut up pieces with strokes like a paint brush and Miss 4 pressing firmly on the sponges to soak up and squeeze out as much paint in the sponge.

As the activity developed the temptation to put their hands in the paint was too great and slowly the sponges were not used at all – just hands and fingers!

Miss 6 was more focused on creating pictures with the materials provided; she used a combination of sponge pieces and finger painting. She organised the shapes the sponges were randomly cut into to create a painted picture. For example she used the rectangle shape sponge cut off to create the main part of a wind mill and then used her fingers for the remaining parts.

Miss 4 was all hands and fingers in by the end of the activity; here she is practicing writing her name in the paint that she applied with her hands.

The learning benefits of this activity:

Self-expression with paint
Eye and hand coordination
Fine motor development
Experimenting and exploring with a new paint tool
Sense of achievement and pride
Colour recognition
Sensory experience of exploring paint and paint filled sponges.

Tips:

To help with clean up and reduce the mess, have a cloth handy for kids to wipe their hands on as needed. Cover areas with a plastic table cloth or newspaper and have children wear a painting smock.

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How to Make Puffy Paint?

Posted by Janice on October 16, 2012 28 Comments

There is something magical about Puffy Paint and it is a must try for any child or toddler to paint and play with.

It is super easy to make with all the ingredients you need right in your pantry and after your child has finished painting, place it in the microwave for the magic to happen…….It is SO much FUN!!

What you will need?

You will need self-raising flour, salt, food colourings, paint brushes, paint tray, measuring spoons, water and cut up pieces of cardboard.

There are a number of recipes out there for puffy paint but I had a bit of an idea of what was included and had a play around with the main ingredients until I found the right consistency and quantity for our paint pots. Here is the recipe that I found to work well.

Recipe for Puffy Paint

1 Tablespoon Self Raising Flour

1 Table Spoon Salt

3 Teaspoons Water

Food Colouring

Continually mix the ingredients with a paint brush until all ingredients have combined well into a paste.

We used thick cardboard that I cut up from an empty nappy box and also cut the cardboard into smaller sizes to fit into the microwave. My girls’ just painted one picture after the other until all the puffy paint and cardboard was gone! I would recommend that the paint be painted on thick so when they are cooked they are extra puffy!

When the paintings were all finished we placed a microwavable bowl in the centre of the microwave and put 1 painting at a time on top of the bowl. Different microwaves will require different times; this is something you will have to trial to see how long you need to cook the puffy paint to make it puff.

Our microwave roughly took 25 seconds to puff the paint but I did stop at intervals to check that I was not overcooking the puffy paint. The puffy paintings should come out warm not hot, so keep an eye on the time to avoid over cooking.

The learning benefits of this activity:

Encourages creativity and self-expression with paint
Eye and hand coordination
Fine motor development
Experimenting and exploring with a new paint tool
Sense of achievement and pride
Colour recognition

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Textured Painting with Nature’s Paint Brushes

Posted by Janice on August 28, 2012 12 Comments

Paint ideas and activities for kids and toddlers

When I saw these fabulous homemade paint brushes on my newsfeed on Facebook shared by the Dirt Girl World fan page, I instantly wanted to give this a try with my girls. With the weather warming up, I have been planning more activities to do with the kids outside and I thought these paint brushes would be perfect for textured painting on a large paper canvas fixed to the fence.

What you will need?

An invitation to play – Here I have set up a paper canvas on our fence, held up with masking tape and the Natures Paint Brushes in some paint on clean recycled meat trays. You will also need some elastic bands, sharp scissors or gardening snips, fallen down twigs from tree branches and basically any plant cuttings found in the garden or bushland.

My kids and I went for a walk along a bush track near our home to collect the twigs and plant cuttings to make our Paint Brushes. We chose 3 different types of textured plants to use for our paint brushes.

How to make the Natures Paint Brushes?

Collect up some twigs. You could basically use any size or shape sticks but we chose ones that were not too thin or wide and were as straight as possible. Our twigs were approximately 22cm long.
Find the bushiest part of the plant and snip off a small bunch. You do no need a lot because when you join the leafiest parts together it becomes dense. Trim off the leafiest parts so they are roughly the same length and bunch it together. Attach it to the end of the twig by wrapping the elastic band around it several times to hold it into place.

Let’s Play

This activity allows kids to explore their creativity and imagination freely. Exploring the patterns the Nature’s Paint Brushes transferred onto the paper, mixing coloured paint together and creating shapes and pictures with no restrictions or expectations.

Each paint brush had a different type of plant leaf attached to them which created different patterns and textures on the paper. We discovered that one of the paint brushes was more prickly and hard while another one was soft and a bit floppy. Each created a different textured pattern on the painting.

Our finished painting!

The learning benefits of this activity:

Self-expression with paint
Eye and hand coordination
Fine motor development
Experimenting and exploring with a new paint tool
Sense of achievement and pride
Colour recognition

Filed Under: Paint Play | Tagged: Tagged With: Painting Activities

Paint Pops

Posted by Janice on March 15, 2012 9 Comments

The great thing about the internet is that there many fabulous sites out there sharing so many wonderful play and craft ideas. This post has been developed on the fabulous idea Frozen Paint Art – Cool Fun on a Hot Day I found on the gorgeous blog Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. It looked like so much fun that we had to give it a try. My girls renamed this to Paint Pops and had a blast painting with melting ice paint!

What you will need?

You will need paint, ice cube tray, pop sticks, paper and a divided paint tray. We froze the paint a little then took them out the freezer to place in the pop sticks. When we were ready to use the frozen paint pops we placed them in the sun for little to slightly melt them and remove them from the tray.

Some of the paint pop creations made by Miss 4 and 5; a garden of flowers and a boat on the sea. Miss 4 loved to just mix the colours together on the paper, making new colours.