September has been full of new faces and getting to know each other. We quickly discovered that almost all our friends love getting messy when we first offered a painting activity. We attached some bubble wrap to the table and gave the children a few different colours of paint. They enjoyed dabbing and swooshing the paintbrushes along the bubbly surface. From there, we tried paint sticks on Kraft paper, painting using alphabet cookie cutters, and using chalk paint on our outdoor chalkboard. The children really enjoyed painting on the chalk board, they helped mix the ingredients together and mix the colours. We made green, red and mixed the two together and made a purplish colour. We made some beautiful artwork and worked on our fine motor skills.
The children have enjoyed getting messy with the paint, mixing colours, and generally just seeing how they make their marks when they put the paint against the canvas. The children are working on their fine motor skills, creativity, pincer grasp, and parallel play with other friends.
Since the toddlers have been enjoying getting creative and messy we plan to do more art experiences. Maybe we can find different materials to paint with in a different environment! We can maybe even use our feet to paint! Since our chalk board has beautiful artwork maybe we can do reverse painting and clean the board off with water, like disappearing magic! I wonder what else we can come up with!
