Puffy Paint Poppies

I now have mainly very young children in my care during the day, which means that most of my celebration planning is now 'meaningless' - in that the children are oblivious to what we are celebrating and why.  However I feel that it is nice to tie in our activities to the celebration if possible.

Had I had older children in my care we would have been doing lots of talking and activities leading up to Remembrance Sunday, Albie is currently very interested in it and we have been doing lots of talking about it and looking at old photos from World Wars 1 and 2.

I decided today that we could do a painting activity as we haven't painted for a few weeks.  As E is 9 months old most things go in her mouth, so I decided to repeat an activity that we haven't done for a while - painting with home made puffy paint, which is 100% edible!  To tie the activity in with Remembrance Sunday (very loosely) I coloured the paint red and green - the same colours as the poppies.

The first thing that E did was suck on the paint brush!  Although the paint is edible, I don't imagine that it is tasty, so after the first time, E didn't attempt to taste the paint again!  E then had lots of fun squishing the paint over the paper.

Once E had finished her masterpiece I microwaved it for a few seconds to make it puff up - however as she had smeared the paint on on the paper it wasn't quite thick enough to puff up, so it just became hard and flaky - yay, I invented flaky paint, I just need to think of a use for it now!!!!

Just look at that smile, E does make me laugh!

Blind Painting

In honour of the Paralympics starting tonight, I planned a 'blind painting' activity.  Today I only had J aged 36 months and M aged 26 months, so anything too complicated is too old for them, I thought this activity was perfect as it involves painting, which they both adore!

We spoke about being blind, what it means, and how we like our working eyes.  J said he "wouldn't like to be blind".

I got out the painting things and the children became VERY excited!  Everything was ready, and we were at the stage where they normally dive on in and start splattering paint about, when I told them to wait!  We were going to try painting as though we were blind!!!

I then produced a tea towel and a peg to blindfold the children!

J thought it was funny and he giggled lots whilst being blindfolded, though he didn't apply much paint to the paper.

M wasn't impressed with being blindfolded and immediately tried to remove the tea towel, though I gently coaxed his hands to the paper and handed him the brush, so he instinctively began painting.  

M wasn't as cautious as J when he was blindfolded, whereas J just painted his brush on the paper a few times, M painted just as though he could see, even attempting to reapply paint to his brush - which he needed a little help with!

After a couple of minutes I removed the blindfolds and the children continued painting, having a wonderful time!

Blow Painting

We did a very simple blow painting activity on Friday.  Albie and H were very excited, they said it was like "real art attack"!


We used liquid water colour paints for this activity which worked really well, the children had great fun blowing their paint across the paper.  Albie figured out he could dab and scrape his straw across the paper to give a very different effect which also worked well.  I figured out that if you put your straw very close to the paper and blow very gently the paint bubbles up, I managed to blow some quite large bubbles before the popped with a splat, also creating a great effect on the paper.


The finished paintings were lovely.

However, a word of warning, if you choose to recreate this activity at home and attempt the bubble blowing and popping method, this can happen........

Butterfly crafts

We have been learning all about the lifecycle of a butterfly over the last few weeks.  As such we have made some lovely butterfly crafts.

The children painted some card butterfly templates - I showed them how to paint one side and fold it over to make the pattern symmetrical - some of the children chose to use that method and others chose to just paint it all - they were all beautiful!

Today J and M made a simple butterfly.  First they coloured a wooden peg with Sharpie markers (I attached the peg to a piece of cardboard to make it easier for the children to hold and colour in) - just look at the concentration on their faces!

Then very carefully we painted a piece of kitchen roll with our (home made) watercolour paints, taking lots of care not to rip the paper.

We added goggly eyes to our pegs and once the paper was dry scrunched it up to make wings - ta da, two lovely butterflies!

'Stained Glass' Painting

I am loving watercolour paints at the moment, I think that the effect they give are really pretty!  


The children created some beautiful stained glass effect paintings using white card, masking tape and watercolour paints.


Here is the one that I made to show the children in advance what it would look like, they were very excited to get going...

Aren't they pretty!

Drawing Castles

As it was a rainy morning we decided to have a break from parks, and go to the cinema for a Friday treat, however we had a few hours to kill, so I got one of the children's craft books out.  H chose his activity - making a knight themed wall hanging decoration.  And then he told me he couldn't do it!  So I showed him how....


I drew a castle, and with each line I drew on the paper H copied mine.  Eventually H had a great looking castle!

We both then drew a sword with H copying mine.

Then we drew a shield.

H then painted his pictures using watercolour paints, something he hadn't used before.

Here is H's finished piece of art, I love the watercolours, and I think his drawings are fantastic!  He was very proud of his masterpiece!

The painted shield.

The painted sword.

The painted castle.