Painting On A Sunny Sunday

How was your weekend? Ours was relaxing, quiet, low-key, lovely.

Sunday was a chilly but sunny day here in Melbourne and, inspired by a recent post by SquiggleMum, called "Playing Whatever the Weather", I decided to let the children play outside despite the cold. I am what my family refers to as a 'cold body', so I really don't like being outside in winter, but thankfully my kids are big enough (and the windows looking out the back are large enough) that I don't necessarily have to be out there with them.

They had a ball. They spent the morning chasing each other up and down the hill we have in the yard on their bikes. Then, after some lunch and a much-needed rest, Em asked to do some painting (Ed had fallen asleep).

I try to minimise mess and cleaning up after the kids paint, so I headed straight to my very messy art cupboard to raid the recycling items I keep there. I grabbed an egg carton to pour the paint into and a large glass jar to hold the water for the brushes.

Next I set up a plastic table I bought from a cheapy shop that can get as painty and grotty as it likes because it lives outside. That's where I put the paint, the jar and a dishwashing cloth for Em to dab her brush onto after she had finished washing it off. I set all of this up alongside her easel.



I took my clothes airer and some pegs out too to hang the wet paintings on.

Em asked for a pencil and eraser to sketch what she wanted to paint.



She must have been inspired by her beautiful outlook.





It wasn't long before sleepy Ed came out from his room and Em decided she wanted to paint his portrait. But Ed just wouldn't stand still long enough.

Then surprise, surprise, Ed wanted to paint too.

I was a bit stuck because I don't have 2 easels, but he soon decided he wanted to do "foldy" paintings, so we didn't need an extra easel after all.

I made a makeshift table for him using an upside down storage container with an esky lid as a table top.



I got him some cotton tips, a bag to throw the tips into when he had finished and some plain white paper which I pre-folded. Once they were set up, I headed back to my ironing.

It wasn't long before hands were being painted, so I went back out with some warm soapy water, a facewasher and an old hand towel.

The two of them painted outside by themselves for over an hour. Because the activity was so open ended, it suited both of their developmental needs and abilities. Em painted masterpieces and her hands and started to fold her large paper in half. Ed mostly experimented with colour mixing and colour squishing.

Cleaning up was easy, most of it went straight into the bin, then we left the paintings to dry outside. A simple, creative, fun afternoon.

Don't forget to checkout my "You Tube" video if you haven't already and play along at the Childhood 101 "We Play" link up.

Holiday Hits

I'm always being told by my husband "You give yourself too many things to do!" and these holidays were no exception. I didn't get through all the things I had planned, but we did have loads of fun doing what we did, and our time away was very enjoyable.

I thought I would share a few highlights:

Easter Basket Making:

A big shout out to Liss from 'Frills in The Hills' for her basket making idea. We put our own twist on it and covered our baskets in felt instead of paper. Em had a great time making these baskets and was very proud of her end result. Ed enjoyed decorating his little felt eggs with fabric paint, but I had to put his basket together for him on the Saturday before Easter. I was waiting for him to show some initiative to do it himself, but he wasn't interested until the night before when Em put out her beautifully prepared basket and his wasn't ready. He's a little bit last minute like his Mum.




Painting Canvasses

Em really enjoyed painting her own designs. She spent a couple of hours on it and had a ball mixing colours and creating effects. These will take pride of place in her room for a while I'm sure. The "Dead Heart" design is particularly interesting ........



Visiting Family

We had a wonderful time visiting our family in Adelaide. Extended family is so important and I am reminded of this more and more as my children get older. The role Aunties, Uncles, Cousins and Grandparents play in the development of self-esteem, a sense of belonging and feeling valued is priceless. Not to mention the sense of security felt when being loved and cared for by a large group of people. My children blossom and thrive when they are with their interstate-loved-ones and I enjoy watching every minute they spend with them.

Free Play Time

We had lots of free play time over the holidays and the children had a ball with it. Much of the play centred around this corner of the lounge room.



As I've mentioned earlier, as part of Em's 'school play', I've set up an office and staff room.

Over the holidays, this area was used as a restaurant, a house and ,my favourite, "Em and Ed's Cafe".

We added some notepads for order taking and the kids played in this area for hours.

What I've Used Here:

A toy changing table as a bench
A kettle
A toaster
An empty 'Weet-bix' box
A toy oven
A plastic saucepan
A collection of pretend herbs, spices and sauces
All the plastic food and toy crockery I could find
A small table and chairs
Paper, pens, textas and notepads
Band-aids (Em NEEDED them?!)
An op-shop handbag and a purse

What fun did you get up to on your holidays?

Finishing Off My Week With Ed

My week of setting up activities for Ed ended with some racetracks and some art work.

On Thursday we got out one of my husband's old Hot Wheels racetracks for Ed to play with. I took a few minutes to put it all together and he played with it for a couple of hours. The great thing about where he is at at the moment is he loves to add to things I set up. He is constantly thinking about what he can add to what he's doing. This is why it's great to have a whole range of toys accessible to children from about 2 years and up, particularly toys and accessories that are open-ended and stimulate imagination, curiosity and exploration.

On Friday we were watercolour painting. This is one of my favourite types of painting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it involves a lot of thinking. To get a good result, the brush needs to be washed in water before it's put into another colour. The brush also needs to move around on the colour chosen for a little while in order for the water to mix with the paint. This means it can take a little bit of time and thought, instead of instant result being achieved like when arcrylic paints are used. It's also great for younger children like Ed too, though, because it almost always leads to a sponatneous exploration of colour mixing, which is something Ed really enjoyed on Friday.



Lastly, it is super easy to clean up and doesn't stain anything it gets on, which is a huge plus in my book. You can see in the photo, I use a really old sheet to protect the table and recycled yoghurt and fruit containers to hold the water in. Only one brush is used and this is really easy to wash out and the paints can be rinsed under water if the colours get too mixed up. Because it's so easy to clean up, I even let my kids do it indoors, although I wouldn't recommend this for first timers!

Eye Dropper Paintings

At playgroup on Monday, I set up some eye dropper painting for the kids. I call it painting quite reluctantly because in actual fact it's more of a science activity than an art activity, but it does involve experimentation with colour and it's a great way to get children involved in an "art -type" activity who are usually a little reluctant to do so.



The other thing I love about this activity is the way it works on building fine muscle control, eye-hand co-ordination and cognitive abilities. It is also a great language developing activity because chidlren are usually so intrigued by what's going on, they want to talk about it. As I said earlier, it's a great way to get children to learn about colours and for children who are slightly older, it's an opportunity to experiement a little with colour mixing.

To do this activity at home, you'll need:

- Some eye-droppers. I bought the ones in the photo from an educational toy store for around 30 cents. They're really easy to use because they're long and the tops are really easy to squeeze, but any eye dropper would do

- Food colouring mixed into water. Less is more with food colouring, but you do need a reasonably high food dye/water ratio to get good colour. It's best to start with a few good drops and see how you go.

- Paper towel. The cheap stuff works quite well, but the more absorbent the paper towel, the more fun the activity is.

Some tips:
- encourage your child to do just a few drops and see what happens. If they're anything like my boy, they'll squirt the entire contents of the dropper onto the paper and end up with nothing but a soggy mess. It's all part of the learning though. Encourage them to go more slowly and see what happens.
- food colouring is messy and doesn't wash well, so a plastic cover for the surface you'll be using is highly recommended, as is a water-proof smock
- use only a small amount of liquid so that if it does spill, it doesn't go EVERYWHERE. Glass jars are a really great, sturdy container to use, but if you have some of those non-spill paint pots, even better

Painting Circles with Light Colours

Ed enjoyed sponge painting the Easter Eggs last weekend so much, that I thought I would set up a painting activity for him this week.

He chose the colours he wanted - 'light' blue and 'light' orange. I thought that he was remembering the pastel colours we used to paint the egg shapes, so I asked him, "How do we make light colours?" Sure enough, he remembered - "We need to add some white paint". So, we made our light colours in some plastic yoghurt containers, added some brushes and headed out to the deck.

I decided to make things a little more interesting for him by putting some paint onto the lid of a plastic container and putting a cork into the paint. I also added some cotton tips. The cork was a great hit. He looked at the bottom of it and said "I can make some circles!" The cork was the first thing to go onto the paper.



He found it a little tricky at first. He dragged the cork onto the paper and then lifted it up. He looked a little confused when he didn't have the shape he was expecting. I felt the urge to intervene, but decided to leave him to it and get those problem-solving skills working. It didn't take long. With the next go he pressed the cork onto the page and lifted it off - presto - a circle. He was delighted with himself and let out one of his trademark giggles. He then set about experimenting and creating his work.



I headed inside but I could hear him talking to himself almost non-stop. he was talking about the shapes, the colours, the 'car' he was painting. It was great to hear him talking so much and working things out for himself without the 'help' of his big sister!