Ice Cube (Body) Painting

Okay so here was one activity that definitely did not go to plan!  As we finally had some hot weather yesterday I thought we could have a go at  ice cube painting.  So out came the frozen ice cube painst and paper, simple enough?  Well, lets just say we didn't need much of the paper! 

'Look' I said to J, 'we can use the ice cubes to draw on the paper'.  J, however had other ideas! Completely ignoring me, had already discovered that ice cube paints were just perfect for body painting.

Why use paper when you could paint on yourself, and who wouldn't want to cool off with ice cube paint on a hot day!

That lovely combination of paint and cold!

We did eventually get round to using the paper - very briefly.

J experimented, using all the paints at the same time.

Then decided to make a rainbow.

She then discovered that the paints were getting quite crumbly as they began to melt and were much easier to paint with.

Much easier for body painting!



Bubbles!

We've been having great fun with bubbles over the last week.  It started when I noticed that the children were particularly fascinated with the bubbles whilst we were playing with Soap Flake Foam.  Building on this interest I decided to get the bubble mixture out. 

The children love this and it is always popular, but it tends to be one of those activities that I forget to do!  Anyway, being on-the-ball this week, out came the bubbles.  Its surprising how many aspects of physical development are covered by such a simple activity:

There's the obvious, blowing!

Though this can be quite tricky - particularly resisting the urge to place the bubble wand on your lips!

It also provides lots of opportunities for stretching and jumping as you try to reach those pesky bubbles that are always just out of reach!

Also hand-eye coordination.

And then there's coordination - coordinating your actions so you can avoid crashing into each other as you both head for same bubble! (some of us are good at this : some are still oblivious to others!)

So with the interest still going strong and the additional knowledge that both little ones can 'blow' I thought we would try some bubble blowing painting.

I must admit I haven't had much success with this activity in the past.  Usually you can barely see the bubbles or they pop before we have had a chance to print them.   However with a little bit of experimenting I think I have got it right - see there are even learning opportunities for me!

Usually we use shallowish tins or trays.  This appears to have been my first mistake.  Small pots definitely work better.  I experimented with different quantities of washing-up liquid, paint and water and found that 4 tablespoons of paint, 1 tablespoon of good quality washing-up liquid (I used Fairy) and 30ml of water produced good prints, any less paint and they were too faint. 

So we blew....

and blew....ok I think that's enough we can print now

...no, okay maybe a bit more blowing (I think the process it more fun than the end product!)

and finally printing!

And then back to blowing!

Some of us, who were new to this did occasionally suck. Yuk!

We created some pretty impressive results! 

So what next.....well I've found this recipe for giant bubble that I can wait to try for the children to try.  And then there's blow painting or maybe we could try blowing ping pong ball through paint!  I just need more time in the week:)

Links to EYFS:

PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using the bubble wands and straws to blow)

CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions to blow and not suck!)

KUW: Exploration and Investigation (I get this one - learning how to make bubble mixture through experimenting!)

PD: Movement and Space (managing body to create intended movements - jumping, stretching etc.)

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Butterflies - Eric Carle style - version 2!

No, I'm not totally obsessed with butterflies / Eric Carle!  I wanted a really simple activity I could do at the Childminding Group along this theme.  Although the butterflies we already created looked fab, they were never going to work with 20+ children ranging in age from 6m - 4 years in 2 hours.  So I decided to simplify the process and print straight onto the butterfly templates.  I got my guinea pigs (oops I mean children) to work! 

First I got them to pick a colour to paint the butterfly with.  I needed to restrict the amount of paint they used, otherwise I could predict our butterflies ending up that horrible purply brown colour.  So I thought one way of doing this might be to paint using our hands, which of course they were more than happy to oblige.  This generated lots of giggles as the paint was 'cold and tickly'. 

Once we had the majority of the butterfly covered, I got them to select another colour. Again the idea should be to select contrasting colours, but I wanted to allow the children as much freedom as possible during the activity.  This time they used their brushes to make big marks on the paper, again needing encouragement to avoid focusing only on the centre of the paper. 

They then got to pick the resource they would like to use for printing and selected another colour.  We stuck to the ones we had used for the other butterfly activity - stickle brick, duplo brick, carpet square and cardboard tube.

Here are our finished butterflies.  Hmmm not bad and much quicker to do!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)

Hungry Caterpillar Style Butterflies

We thought we would join in the celebrations of Eric Carle's birthday (author of the Hungry Caterpillar) and create some butterflies this week.  We watched Eric's unique technique for painting on his website and decided to use the simplied version  Anna at The Imagination Tree had thought up.

Luckily we already had some very thick tissue paper. Thicker is better as it tends to tear whilst the children are trying to paint it.  Although the idea is to use contrasting colours, I didn't want to be too prescriptive and let the children select the colours they wished to use.  So we chose the colour of tissue paper we wanted and then the
first colour paint and made large brush marks across the paper. 




This took quite a lot of encouragement initially as the
children both seemed to want to colour in the centre
of the paper with lots and lots of paint! We then
selected another colour and made some more large
brush marks. 

Next was the part they enjoyed the most, stamping, evident in the big smiles!  They each selected an object to use, we used small squares of carpet, duplo bricks, sticklebricks and a small cardboard tube andstamped onto their card using another colour paint. 

We went on to create about 15 sheets of tissue paper (cooking lunch in the kitchen was a bit of a struggle!). 

While we waited for our masterpieces to dry, we created a butterfly template on the laptop, blew it up and printed it off.  Okay, so I did the butterfly and they raced round the garden like lunatics! (I think those creations required more concentration than I had realised!)

However, keen to be involved in every stage of this  project, I had two very willing volunteers to help me piece the 9 A4 sheets of black together, just like a giant jigsaw!  They also insisted on helping to stick it together, consequently this part took quite a long time and a lot of unsticking and repositioning!  We then used our template to cut out some butterflies from card.  

After resorting to the hairdrier, I cut up the  paintings   into small squares and triangles (with hindsight I probably cut ours a bit too small and they would have been more effective if they were larger) and the children stuck them onto their butterfly templates.

And here are our finished creations!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)

Spots n Stripes

We have been looking at patterns recently so thought the children would enjoy this activity.  It is very adult led (however it is the children's choice whether they wish to participate), so can't really be described as a creative activity but covers aspects of the EYFS such as mixing colours, following instructions etc.

The children were provided with various templates and photographs of animals and selected the animal template that they wanted to do first. 

They first had to identify which animal it was by looking at the photographs and then we discussed the colour and pattern of the animal.  The children selected the colour paint they needed.

  I purposefully gave the children a limited number of colours as I wanted them to mix the colours that were not available, which they proved to be surprisingly good at.

When mixing colours we talked about what colour were nearly like the colour we needed and encouraged the children to make suggestions and try mixing their suggestions together.  The children particularly enjoyed mixing colours so we will do more of this next week.

  

After the children had painted the animals we looked closely at their patterns, identifying whether they were spotty or stripey and also the colours of their spots and stripes. 

 

The children decided their thumbs would be best for making bigger spots and their finger for smaller spots

With the stripey animals, we also had to identify the direction of their stripes.

The children made all of these wonderful animals.

I then encouraged the children to make up some animals of their own.  The decided on the colours they would use and then carried out their plans.We ended up with red and orange giraffes, orange and blue striped zebras and yellow dogs with black spots!

Links to EYFS:

CLL: Language for Communication - Where children respond and follow instructions
KUW: Exploration and Investigation - Noticing and commenting on patterns.

CD: Exploring Media and Materials - Exploring and mixing colours.