We did a little blow painting exercise last week. The kids got to blow into straws and they didn't get any paint on their hands or clothes. In my book that's a successful stress-free project for mama! Plus it's fun to see where the paint goes, and how force changes the direction and flow of the paint.
For this project all you need is some painting paper (purchased at a local craft store or the stationery department of Target), paint (I used Crayola finger paint), water, straws, and paper cups (to mix the paint in).
Mix each color of paint separately with enough water to make it runny, so that it will be easy to blow across the paper with a straw. Putting two or three different colors onto the paper will provide extra fun and also interesting contrast. We started with the paint overlapping a bit.
To finish off their pieces of art my kids used a Sharpie to add detail to their little monsters. Be sure to wait for the paint to thoroughly dry before diving in with the marker.
This project is also really cool with simple (thinned) black paint or ink. Make sure to monitor little ones so they don't suck on their straw, or lick paint off the end of it. If your children are a little older and don't need as much direction, consider joining in yourself!
My kids often ask to do craft or art projects, and while some things are pretty manageable I do get rather overwhelmed with large messy projects in our tiny space. One solution I came up with was to cut out a variety of shapes freehand from those pesky bits and pieces of construction paper that sit around the craft bin with little purpose, and let my younger ones paste them onto a sheet of paper.
This is a great craft for toddlers who can handle a glue stick, but even my 6-year-old daughter wants in on the action when I bust out the baggie of paper shapes. All you need for your own paper shape art is a sheet of any type of paper, colored construction paper, scissors (to cut out shapes), and a glue stick! I put any unused shapes into a zip-top bag for next time.
I encourage my older daughter to try and make pictures using the shapes. While my younger daughter sometimes makes pictures, mostly she just has a ball using the glue stick and covering her page with pretty shapes to her heart's content.
This project
can easily be used as a learning exercise for children to learn about different shapes
and their names; or if your child needs practice with cutting along lines, go ahead and trace the shapes
for them to cut out themselves.
For the last week or two, my two-year-old has been producing lots of drawings. They all look the same. It's almost freaky to go through a stack of papers and see the same thing drawn over and over and over on them! She's sketching these odd little faces on blank paper, in her tablet, on instruction manuals, and paper plates. It's actually quite fun to watch her little hand manipulate a circle! I wonder what will be next on her repertoire?
