Finger Painting - A Brilliant Activity for Toddlers

Color Carnival  : Day 4

Is there a kid who doesn't like finger painting? Finger painting is easier for little fingers that are not yet ready to manipulate a brush. Finger painting could be started as early before a kid turns one. To start with you can try with edible home made paints or non-toxic paints. Messy and free play enhances kid's self-expression, imagination and creativity. 

Now, let's us look into what LO did in this session of Finger painting. Last time we did color mixing and palm print (I will share you the pics soon!) So this time I expected similar kinda play, but LO made a different attempt which I didn't expect!

Let me give you all a walk through at LO's imaginative painting!

I just offered him the colors one by one, and it was all LO's imagination and creation. We started with orange color, and LO painted a sun!

Then I gave him yellow color, and it was funny he chose banana to draw. Followed by red colored candles.. 

Then green colored grass..

Purple color wheels, and yellow color car!

A purple motor bike with brown color wheels.

 And Blue sky!!

 Orange birds, one bigggg and one small bird!!

That's a red colored fire truck, but we didn't have enough space to paint the wheels, so he made it upside down!

and an upside down tree!

Let's revisit the colorful pictures..😜

Happy Parenting!

Fun with Shapes, Textures and Colors

Color Carnival : Day 3

This is an All-in-one activity! Kids get to explore different shapes, textures and colors in this single activity. Initially, me and LO started this activity to explore different shapes with colors. But finally it turned out to be exploring the textures too. The materials we collected for different shapes were of different textures, and that is what made this activity interesting. LO got so excited on seeing the final colored texture of his star and rectangle painting! Lets look into the exciting textures and shapes.

Materials Used:

Kids washable paint

White construction papers

For the shapes:

Circle - Paper roll tube

Star - wooden block

Square - wooden block and bristle block

Triangle - bristle block and triangular tube

Hexagon - hexagon shaped bottle

Rectangle - wooden block and sponge

We started with circle, used the paper roll tube. For kids, to start with, the paper roll is a great way to encourage using colors, since it is a mess free painting. 

LO enjoyed making different colored circles and rubbing it!

Next we did the star print with a wooden block. LO got so excited with this, since the texture the star block made with the colors was amazing. Can you observe the striped star in the picture? The star block was already painted with oil paint kinda and when LO dipped into color to make the impression, it made superb stripes!

The next shape we tried was rectangle with a wooden block. When you observe it close, you can find checked pattern it has made! And we tried to print square shape with pink color.

I had a hexagon shaped small glass bottle and a small triangular tube which we used to print.

We used bristel blocks and printed square and triangle. Look at the pattern of the shapes!

Here comes one more interesting texture, the sponge. Surprisingly found this rectangular piece in his cupboard and gave a try. We mixed green and blue color to get a different pattern. My God! It turned out fabulous.

Give a try with different shapes and textures, with what ever items available at your home! I'm sure kids will enjoy this activity.

Happy Parenting!

Painting with Cotton Swabs

Color Carnival : Day 2

At our place the next two days seem to be rainy. I know rainy days make kids (and Moms!) go cranky😣. Keeping kids occupied indoors could be bit challenging! So, soon as LO completes his breakfast I start to plan for the day's activity, before he goes cranky! 

The next Coloring activity is with cotton swabs😊. Using the swabs is a great fine motor activity for kids. Gripping the Q- tips is similar to the writing practice and helps develop pencil grasp.

Materials Used:

• Cotton Swabs
• White Paper
• Kids Washable Paint
• Pencil
• Transparent Tape

Tape the white paper on the table. Initially I thought to print on patterns like waves, zig-zag.. etc. So I drew a wave pattern with pencil and let LO to print the colors with swab on it. Look the cloudy day have made my pictures look dull😠

 He did a quite decent job and completed the blue color wave. Next I drew grass like pattern, since he asked for green color. I have to admit truly, he lost interest half way through!

So I thought alphabets would be right choice to make him get back to interest. So I wrote his name with pencil, and proffered him many colors.

Without big mess we completed printing his name!

Try this out, and I'm sure kids would love this different way of working with cotton swabs. Expand your imagination and try out varied ideas, and allow free play for your little ones.

Happy Parenting!😊

Fork Painting for Kids: Easy and Fun Color Carnival Activity

Welcome to Day 1 of our Color Carnival! Today, we tried an exciting fork painting activity with my little one. This simple art project is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers, letting them explore colors and textures in a playful, hands-on way.

                             

All you need is:

• A fork

• White paper

• Washable kids’ paint                                    

We started with red paint. My child dipped the fork into the paint and pressed it onto the paper, creating unique, striped patterns. To keep things tidy, we used only one color at a time. 

Next, we experimented with green, and the results were colorful and fun!

Why Fork Painting is Great for Kids:

• Encourages creativity and self-expression

• Introduces new textures and patterns

• Helps develop fine motor skills

• Fun, mess-friendly, and easy to clean

Tips for Fork Painting at Home:

• Use different fork designs for varied patterns

• Try layering colors for more creativity

• Combine fork painting with other crafts like stickers or glitter

 This is a wonderful activity for rainy days, weekend crafts, or preschool art projects.

Give fork painting for kids a try and watch them explore the joy of colors in a whole new way!

Happy Parenting and Creative Fun!

Color Carnival Begins!

Color Carnival 

This week is gonna be a Color Carnival at Sindhu's cocoon! Yes, for the next five days you will find posts related to colors, colors and colors! Hurrah, me and LO are so excited about this week's theme😁. Watch this space!

Happy Parenting!

Night Sky Collage -Teaching Shapes for Toddlers with Paper Collage Activity

Part 7 : Star 

After a long break we are back with a shape collage🌟. This collage is very simple to do, except for the preparatory work! I was bit indolent about this idea, because of the shape! Cutting out the star shape without a punch is bit tedious! But motivation to do this came in the from of a book from library. Yeah, it was a board book with a "star"(stencil) in each page! 😀 And hurrah! I started to trace out the stars. We planned to make a simple night sky collage, and added a crescent shaped moon to our sky🌟🌜

And this the book I mentioned earlier. 

If you want to try this, you can download the below picture in pdf format here.

LO's collage work!

And here you go! Night sky with the moon and stars is dazzling!✨

You can even try this collage with different colored stars on white or blue sky. 

After collage activity:

• Encourage your child to sing the rhyme "Twinkle Twinkle little star"🌟
• Count the number of stars used in the collage. Make an attempt to count the stars on real sky during the night!
• Talk about the shape of crescent moon and star🌙★.
• Talk about the color of day sky and night sky, the sun and the moon🌞🌕.

Happy Parenting!😊

Time to play with Hedgehog!

Its time to welcome the fall and I'm here with a craft idea for big kids! One of LO's favorite animal associated with the fall season is Hedgehog, so we did a paper craft Hedgehog. You can find a ton of Hedgehog craft ideas on website, but this one is easy to make for kids who can handle scissors. This is perfect to work with the fine motor skills for kids, as it involves lot of cutting!

What you need

• Brown and Orange Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Black Marker
• Something to draw the circle with

How do we make it

We need three brown semicircles and an orange one. So make two brown circles and an orange circle, relatively smaller.

 Cut the circles in half.

Make cones out of halves and glue together.

Like wise with the orange semicircle. 

And time for some cutting. Make stripes on the brown cone, just half way through. Curl the stripes a little. See the picture below.

Glue the cones one into another, see the picture below. Sorry, I didn't capture enough pictures!

Draw eyes and nose on the orange cone. And all done! The cutest Hedgehog on earth is ready!😜You need not stop with making just a single Hedgehog!😊

Happy Parenting!