Spray paint for preschoolers

We did this activity last weekend, and I’ve been too flat out to show you until now! I filled four water spray bottles with water and food colouring to make a pretty water colour for the kids.

We took it outside to spray on paper on the ground. This is even more fun if you can hang gigantic pieces of paper over the fence, but we didn’t want to get our front fence stained, and going out the back to do it on an old fence isn’t an option at the moment. Never mind.

Mr 4 and Missy 2 had a ball squirting away with their bottles. Here’s Missy 2 using both hands to squeeze the trigger and watching the mist shoot over the page. Spray painting is:

- cheap
- open-ended
- strengthening for the fine motor muscles (hands)
- requires eye-hand co-ordination as the child watches the direction of the spray and tries to manipulate it where they want it to go.
- great for teaching children about colours
- gives the child a chance to use trial and error

We tried spraying over ourselves:

Then we turned to nature:

And we learnt what happens when part of the page is covered then painted!

One day we’ll do this with the paper upright against the fence, and I’ll show how much fun that is, too. Are you all having a lovely weekend? I hope so!

Edited to add: we did this again later down the track with a sheet hung over the back gate.