art | Hear Mum Roar

Coloured Window Art

Written on February 1st, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Craft, Experiences, February 2011, Fine motor, Preschool aged, Toddler

I love doing coloured window art with young kids. It’s easy, yet something out of the ordinary for them. I find it holds their interest for ages. As you can see, all I’ve done is cut up some collage-type materials for the children; today it was fabric scraps. Other times, I’ve given the children flattened cup cake cases, confetti from the hole punch, chopped wool scraps, chopped streamers, basically whatever I’ve had lying around. It’s also important to make sure nothing would be a choking hazard for your kids. I’m lucky in that my kids are past the stage of putting craft/art items in their mouths, but if you know yours will (it’s the under 3′s we need to be careful with, generally), simply use bigger, safer pieces and supervise.

Then, I provide the kids with a sheet of clear contact with the adhesive side facing upward. I turn each corner underneath to stick it to the table. Now all the kids need to is to stick their collage pieces on to their hearts’ content. Once they finished each masterpiece, I stuck it to the window for them.

…Until the kids decided to do it for themselves.

I love that this is an open-ended activity that doesn’t add any pressure to look like anything in particular. However, if you keep the backing sheet from the contact you’ve cut for your child, you can stick the finished piece back onto the backing paper. This lets a child take their art work home, or give it to their grandparents as a very special gift. Once it’s in its new home, it can still be proudly displayed on a window.

This is a great time of year to be doing this activity too, because I find after doing back to school shopping, I have loads of contact to spare.

Child art- ball painting

Written on October 30th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

If you have a child who loves to paint, but is looking for something a bit different to simply using a paintbrush, they will love this. It’s the weekend here, and Missy 2 was once again begging to paint. Missy 10′s been away at school when the little ones have been painting, so it was nice for her to get the chance to join in.

So, how did we paint with balls? I got a big plastic box, and Blu-tacked some paper to the bottom of the inside.

I sat each ball in a different bowl or container for separate colours. Then, the kids just picked up a slippery ball, dropped it onto their paper, and moved the box to make the balls roll.

Kids have so much fun with this activity and learn a lot without realising it. They get to:

- work their fine motor muscles, trying extra hard to pick up those slippery balls
- experiment with gravity and physics, tipping the box this way and that to make the ball go where they want it to on the page
- challenge their eye-hand co-ordination in a more intense way than usual. It’s one thing to try to watch something, and get your hands to work together with your vision, but imagine trying to do that when the ball has a mind of its own!
- learn about colours mixing together, as one coloured ball rolls over previous stripes painted by other colours.
- apply trial and error to see what happens if they use smaller balls, such as marbles (for the over 3′s, of course we have to be vigilant about choking risks), tennis balls, or even basketballs.
- learn about cause and effect: what happens if we use a four-sided container? What about a round container? The child will observe one is more likely to give stripes and criss-crossing lines, the other will give more rounded, spiral shapes.

One thing I’ve never gotten around to trying though, when doing this activity is painting with a football! If anyone’s child ever gives that go, let me know how it went.

Child art – string painting

Written on October 28th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, Toddler

‘Please Mum, I do painting?’ is the plea I hear from Missy 2 on a regular basis lately. She talks about it all day long. She just adores it.

So, my partner and my son went out to run some errands, and Missy 10 was off at school. This left just Missy 2 and I for some Mum and daughter time. Bliss.

I decided to let her engage in some string painting.

This couldn’t have been simpler to set up. I just tied some lengths of string to clothes pegs then let her dip it in the paint, and squiggle it across the paper.

What I love about this activity is that there cannot be any pressure on the child to make the painting ‘look like’ something. Regular readers will know that open ended art/craft/play in general is something I like to get on the soap box about!

Hands up who thinks she’s enjoying herself?

Missy 2, much in the adventurous spirit of any toddler, got all experimental after a little while. This is cool, don’t try to fight it… Even though an activity has been set up in one way, it’s great if it ends up evolving into something else entirely. Our children need to explore the paint, the paper, their hands, textures, concepts, and so on. Just roll with it.

See how she just immerses herself further and further into the experience? What have your children painted lately?

As you can see, I’ve shown where I usually write the child’s name and date (I didn’t put my child’s actual name for privacy reasons). Labelling artwork in this way reinforces name recognition, and writing it on the left side mimicks the pattern in which we typically read and write. I like to add the date for sentimental reasons, but it could easily be left off.

Child art – mesh dab prints

Written on October 27th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, Toddler

No, you’re not seeing things! He, who hates messy play. He, who wouldn’t touch the fingerpaint or spaghetti paint, has busted out of his comfort zone, gotten paint on his hands and enjoyed it!

This wasn’t the plan, but of course I’m not complaining at all.

It all started with a humble sponge and a string bag from a bag of oranges.

I wrapped it tightly around the sponge with some string…

And we had mesh dab printing, ready to go!

Don’t stress, it’s an old plate…

Printing is a marvelous way for children to apply trial and error to their painting. They learn via cause and effect what will happen if they use something patterned such as a mesh-covered sponge to print onto paper.

It’s a nice, ‘safe’ way to get a child who doesn’t like mess on their hands to have a try at using paint. As Mr 4 has shown us, sometimes all it takes is the need to feel comfortable first, then it’s time to dive in. I think it also helped that his little sister was already using the paint for hand prints anyway, so he felt happy to try what she was doing.

How does your child feel about messy play? Do they love it, or does it bother them?

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Rainbow art

Written on October 25th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Good times, Language, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged

Today was much like a hot summer day in the middle of spring! We took our spray bottles out the back, hung a sheet over the fence and Missy 2 and Mr 4 sprayed the heck out of it. Last time we played with spray bottles, we did it flat on the ground on paper, but hanging a large sheet of paper or cloth allows the children to be more free with it.

Daisy, as always, was faithfully hanging around the kids, you can see by how muddy Missy 2 was, that Daisy was happy to see her! The poor thing got knocked over in the mud. Not to be deterred, her and Mr 4 got on with the important business of playing.

Mr 4 instigated lots of experimental play with these spray bottles. He believed that if he sprayed lots of colour onto flowers that he could make them grow faster…

He was deeply dissappointed that they didn’t grow before his eyes! So, he turned his attention to our irises (some of which were taller than him) and painted them blue.

…Now that’s what I call art!

Also, you’ve probably noticed by now Hear Mum Roar’s new look. I have the wonderfully talented Violet Le Beaux to thank for designing the new graphic art, so thank you!!

Come play at the Childhood101 We Play link up

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Messy play – spaghetti paint.

Written on October 15th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Fine motor, Good times, Language, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, Saving money, Toddler

Time for some messy play again! This time, I have mixed cooked spaghetti with fingerpaint for some squishy, slimey, squoozy fun.

(If you’d like a printout of the fingerpaint recipe, you can download it along with recipes for cooked and uncooked playdough.)

Spaghetti paint is great because it doesn’t cost much and uses ingredients most people usually have in their pantry. It is an excellent activity for sensory exploration. Children can enjoy the smell, the slimy feeling, talk about if it is warm or cold and how wet it is.

It encourages much social and language interaction between children and adults alike. Children can experiment with the paint by either handling it on its own or smearing it around on a piece of paper.

Don’t worry if the paper gets holes in it, always remember that children care about and need the process, not the product.

You can see in the photo above how a child could find out what the paint looks like if they lift the spaghetti off the paper – beautiful swirls!

Mr 4 isn’t a huge fan of messy play, but he liked watching this activity, which is a big improvement. Missy 2, however was willing to have a try. If only Missy 10 were home to really get up to her armpits in this mess. In fact, I think I’ll have to let her when she gets home from school.

(Note: if you are considering using this in a preschool or a daycare setting, please be sensitive to the fact that food play is offensive to some cultures. When in doubt, check first.)

What messy things have your children been up to lately?

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Spray paint for preschoolers

Written on September 11th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Fine motor, Messy play, Preschool aged, September 2010

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.

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Chalk drawings

Written on September 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized

Missy 2 and Mr 4 had fun in the Spring weather making amazing chalk drawings. Missy 2 is obsessed with drawing, and she does it often. It’s good to let them experience different ways of doing things they love.

This activity held Mr 4′s attention for a long amount of time. His drawings are becoming more detailed, and he is putting more mental planning into his art as he gets older.

Drawing is an important part of childrens’ play. It gives them an opportunity to be creative. It’s a great fine motor activity, yet it’s also highly cognitive.

I added water to the chalk bucket to let the colours really ‘pop’. This is also a good thing to do if anyone involved has asthma, it can reduce the amount of chalk dust floating around somewhat. Although, as Missy 2 soon learnt, we still end up wearing the results of our work!

Daisy, our lovely puppy, insisted on being right in the thick of all the proceedings, of course. Once the children tired of drawing, they had a nice run with the dog. What a fun start to Spring.

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up

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Canvas painting for kids

Written on June 25th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, June 2010, Messy play, Preschool aged, Saving money, School aged, Toddler

This is a nice, simple, open-ended media that kids can paint on. Here is a canvas my eldest daughter painted that is now a cherished gift at her grandparents’ house.

Painted canvas gift

Visitors love to admire it and talk about what they see in it, often. It’s also a lovely way for parents to decorate the home, capturing a time, an age, a memory. Best of all, they are cheap and easy to buy! Here’s some painted canvases we’ve done over the years:

More painted canvases
Extra canvases

Have you ever given your children canvas to work with? Next time you’re stuck for a gift, you could give this a try.

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We love Hama beads

Written on June 25th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Constructive, Craft, Fine motor, June 2010, School aged

Hama board

You can see in the photo above, a very well-loved Hama bead bulletin board. My daughter made this a few years ago as a present for her Grandpa. He’s kindly taken all his messages off to send me a photo so I can show you. I purchased the board ready-made, then we glued the Hama bead designs in place.

The first time my partner went into hospital for his paint poisoning, she made him this cute little fridge magnet to cheer him up.
Cat magnet

Have you ever used/tried these wonderful, melty beads? If you haven’t, I’ll give you a brief run down. If you’d like a tutorial, let me know and I’ll do one in the near future (they’re still packed away for now). Basically, you buy these great little beads from craft/toy stores. You need a plastic template that has little stumps sticking out. The beads are placed on top of the stumps, so the stump is sitting inside the hole of the bead. Your childs’ fine motor skills and eye hand coordination are challenged as they carefully put on the Hama beads. Designs can be made out of these, with either pre made shaped templates, or children can place the beads in their own creative patterns.

Once they’re happy with their design, an adult needs to place a sheet of greaseproof paper over the top of the beads and iron it until the beads have melted enough to stick together. It’s then left to cool down and harden. Then you’re left with something like you see in the photos above! If you have some craft glue or a hot glue gun, then you can stick the designs to a cork board, a magnet, or whatever you wish. At my daughter’s old school, many kids used to hang them on their bags as a keyring.

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Tag Archive: art