Painting with Toddlers

I struggle at times to tap into my childrens creative side. Why? I'm not sure. Part of me doesn't want to deal with the mess. The other part of me thinks it is really hard to allow them to do it own their own.



I was on Pinterest one day looking around at arts and crafts for my kids to do inside because it has been so gosh darn hot out! In Kansas it hasn't been just HOT. It has been humid on top of that heat. So you feel like a sticky gooey bun when you walk outside.

This picture is from my van on the way to a BBQ one EVENING. It is supposed to cool off in the evening but it hasn't been. I can't even wear makeup and look presentable when I want to because it all comes right off the second I walk outside.

So because of the heat I found an easy art project that they could do.

The materials you need are...

• Paint
• Canvas (we used a thin 8 x 10)
• Painters Tape
• Brushes

If your child is independent enough they can take the painters tape and place it on the canvas. I did it for my children.

Don't ask why I made it look like a snowflake. Maybe I was hoping it would cool off.

All you do next is let the little one paint until their hearts are full. I didn't have to worry about whether they were painting in the lines or not because I was going to pull the tape up. All I had to do was remind them to clean their brushes and dry them off before adding more paint.

While I was sitting there D3 started to mix some of his colors together on his canvas without knowing. Of course it turned black because he did not know what he was doing. Well that and he mixed pink, yellow, green, and blue together. That combination does not make a beautiful color. That sparked a conversation on mixing colors and how there are three primary colors. We had yellow and blue paint already poured out so I took a little bit of the yellow and put it on D3's canvas. I then took some of the blue paint and swirled it together. While I am doing this I ask the kids what color am I making. They all looked real close to the canvas and then yelled "GREEN!" I told them they were correct. We didn't have any red paint so I showed them what would happen if we added black to purple. They didn't believe me when I said it was a darker purple. They thought it still looked black. They started putting together the paint colors to see what would happen. It was an amazing site to see their little brains working.

Once the kiddos were all done I let the picture sit for a little bit so the paint could dry before pulling the tape up.

They were all surprised on how their picture turned out when all they did was mix some colors together.