Painting with PRIDE: My daughter's lesson to me

This entry isn't so much a great kid's craft idea as it is a story.  It's about me and the lesson that I learned from my daughter.

The other day Lily and I did some relief painting and it really pointed out a common mistake I make as a parent:  focusing more on the outcome than the process.

Lily and I taped off a few pieces of construction paper.  Then she painted right over them with finger paint.  After the paint dries you remove the tape and it makes a cool relief painting.  She went to take a nap while they dried.  After she was asleep I started cleaning up and almost threw away the pictures because they were messy and I knew she wouldn't remember them after she woke up.  On my way to the garbage I walked by my wedding pictures and smiled.  

It was then that I realized a point I'd been missing:  the importance of me to validating her work no matter what it looks like.   How many pictures of your wedding do you have around the house?  Now ask yourself, "Why do I have those displayed?"  Because you're PROUD of them!  It's your VERY BEST!  You see those pictures around the house and it puts a smile on your face, doesn't it?  Our kiddos artwork may not be what we would be proud of if it were ours, but it is the VERY BEST that they can do.  Put a smile on their face by displaying it proudly! 

I got out some 8x10 picture frames (from the 99cent store) and cut the construction paper to that size.  Then I put her art in them and hung the frames proudly in the living room. 

She woke up from her nap and was absolutely thrilled to see her masterpieces hanging in frames.  "Just like your pictures, Mommy!"  Thanks again, Lily, for reminding Mommy of what is really important in life.  <3


Materials
Construction Paper
Masking tape
Finger paint

Truffula Trees with Homemade Watercolors

After seeing "The Lorax" Lily sees Truffula Trees everywhere we go.  They are her favorite things to draw and paint.

Colors so gorgeous and vibrant!  I will use these over the store-bought ones from now on.  Toward the end the paints started getting really gritty, so if anyone has a suggestion to remedy that I'd LOVE to hear it!  And since the paints themselves are so much bigger you can use HUGE brushes.  Perfect for little hands. 

Learn from our mistakes:  Try using a disposable muffin tin for the paints.  They last so long that I'm really starting to miss my good muffin pan! 

Materials: 

Paper

Paint brushes

Paints

Homemade Watercolor Recipe

Again, thank you to Happy Hooligans for the idea! 

Rainbow Rice Rainbow!

I  hadn't intended to make an actual project when we started this.  I laid out the rice and asked her what we should do with it.  I figured it would just turn into a sand table type of activity with rainbow rice.  But the minute saw the gorgeous grains she (very insistently) asked to make her "very own rainbow on paper and then hang it up with tape".  Wow......the lady knows what she wants!  Don't know where she got that? hahaha  So away we went.  I found a spare piece of tag board, some glue, and we went to town.  At the end I suggested that we use some of the cotton balls left over from our Paper Plate Easter Bunnies for clouds.  She thought that was a wonderful idea.  :)  

The proud artist with her finished product!  We always make sure to proudly display her work around the house.....

Trick:  Instead of putting the glue on the cotton balls, put the cotton balls on the glue!  Dab one large dot of glue wherever you want the kiddo to put a cotton ball.  Not only does this stave off a huge mess (which would really bother my little one and stop our project right in it's tracks) but it lets your little guy or gal work on hand/eye coordination. 

Skills:
Color recognition
The constant order and the colors of the spectrum
Sense of touch


Rainbow Rice
Thank you to Happy Hooligans for a fast, easy, and ecologically friendly way of making this beautiful rainbow rice.  I made the it ahead of time because I wasn't sure how much it would stain.  Turns out I could have easily let Lily help out......when you make it in an old tub (Cool Whip, butter, etc.....) it's super easy and relatively clean.
Rainbow Rice recipe

Pollock-esque Relief Name Painting

In order to reinforce name recognition we did some relief painting.  Thank you to the internet ( someone on Pinterest! of course) for this wonderful idea!


First I taped off her name with my favorite stuff in the world:  Post-It Labeling and Cover Up Tape!  It is easier to peel off than a Post It and holds up to quite a bit of paint abuse.  You can also write on it with any medium and it won't run/smudge!


After taping off her name I just let her go at it with paints, brushes, and fingers!


After it was dry she was able to help me take off the tape.  It was like I'd done a magic trick!  Suddenly, out of the Pollock-esque work of art, her name became visible. Amazing!


Skills:
Letter recognition
Name recognition


Materials:
Finger paint
Tape
Butcher paper
Paint brushes or (preferably) FINGERS!
 

Learn from our mistakes:
Be sure to wait until the paint dries before you take the tape off!  I ripped our first try at this right in half!  Oops.

 

Peas Please!

Today Lily had fun with this sensory box. I just put all the materials out and let her go at it without much direction. While playing we learned about our sense of touch and size talked about how smooth and small the lentils and split peas were. She was having such a good time that Daddy even got in on the action. It turned into a very fun family activity!





Materials:
*Empty cardboard box
*Muffin tin
*Funnels
*Cup for measuring and pouring
*Split peas, lentils, or any kind of dried beans
*Pots
*Pans
*Tube from a roll of paper towels

Shaving Cream Bath Paint

This was so much fun!  We tried it once and it's become a nightly staple.  Just mix some shaving cream with a few drops of food coloring and you have "bath paint".  NOTE:  The paint doesn't stain at all!  We've used it many times and there is no residual color at all.  (Just be careful not to get it in your eyes). 




Materials:

*Shaving Cream (non-menthol:  we love to use the creams marketed towards women because they make the paints smell yummy too!)

*Food Coloring

*Paint brushes (or fingers, or toes!)




Extension Ideas  (because we've done this MANY times by now!):


*Use the paint to practice writing/identifying letters.


*Practice the terms light and dark in reference to color.  "Tonight we're going to make light green and dark green."


*Allow the kiddos to explore combining colors to create new ones.


*Make two colors.  Let the adult write a word and the kiddo can trace the letters.  


*It's time for BBQs and that makes for inexpensive sauce brushes in the outdoor section of the market.  These have large, long handles that make it easy for little hands hang on to them.  We love to use these as paint brushes in the bath and with our other art projects!

This quickly became a "body art" project!

Paper Plate Easter Bunny

In preparation for Easter Lily and I created special Easter bunnies!  She loved feeling the soft cotton balls and had fun pulling them apart, reinforcing tactile and sensory skills.  We also worked on counting skills by counting the cotton balls as we glued them on!

Materials:
*White paper plates
*Cotton Balls
*Marker
*Googly eyes
*Construction Paper (for the ears)
*Glue

Easter Egg Stamping

As an Easter project I thought it would be fun to reinforce letter concepts using plastic Easter eggs.  Lily used the egg halves as "stamps" and stamped out a bunch of overlapping letter Os in different colors.  After they were dry I cut them out into the shape of eggs and displayed them proudly in our T.V. room. 

Materials: 
Plastic Easter Eggs
Finger Paints
Paper Plates
Construction Paper

She took the eggs apart and started stamping on the construction paper.

The stamping quickly gave way to fingerpainting!

So we concentrated on mixing two colors together to make a new one!

The finished products.

Breakfast of (Irish) Champions: Green Eggs and Milk

This morning we made green eggs and milk in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  Lily got to squirt in the food coloring and scramble the eggs up......she put in a LOT of green!!  She really thought it was interesting that the food coloring started out looking almost black, and turned green the more she stirred.  She was also surprised that the food tasted exactly the same even thought it looked very different.  Lesson:  Don't judge a book its cover and never judge an egg by its color!

Materials:

Eggs

Green food coloring

Milk

Pickles

The dill seeds I planted in the backyard have finally produced beautiful baby dill, so we decided to make pickles! Lily and I both LOVE these......and she can easily help make them.   It's also a good lesson to learn that the things we eat come from the earth, and in some cases our own backyard.  Fun!

 I find that putting our cooking liquids in a sports bottle makes it easier to for her to do her own measuring.





 

RECIPE:  

1 Lb. Vegetables
1/4 Cup Of Kosher Salt
1 Tbsp Honey
1 Cup Distilled White Vinegar
1 Cup Water
4 Garlic Cloves
6 Sprigs of Dill
2 Bay Leaves

1. Divide the vegetables between 2 16 oz. mason jars.
2. Combine salt, honey, vinegar and water and whisk to combine.
3. Divide the garlic, dill and bay leaves between the jars.
4. Pour the vinegar mixture over the vegetables and cover the jars.
5. Refrigerate and start enjoying after 2-3 days. You can eat them up
to 1 month.

States of Matter and Oreo Cookies

Tomorrow our friends are coming over for a playdate. We decided to make special (and nutritious!) Oreos dipped in chocolate. 

At first there was just a big chunk of chocolate in the bowl and she decided that it could actually double as a drum.

After putting it in the microwave she saw that it had become "soft" and stir-able. Little did she know that she'd just done a relatively complex science experiment pointing out the different states of matter.

  
And how tasty that matter can be!







 Materials:

Sprinkles
Oreos
White Chocolate/White Almond Bark
Waxed Paper

Zoo Chart

On this trip to the zoo we practiced using a chart. This was a new concept and she thought it was really cool!  She loved it! 


Materials: Chart
Stamp (or stickers, or crayons, etc....)

BEFORE

AFTER

Eating Patterns

Today Lily decided to have two of her favorite things for lunch: blueberries and tofu (of as she calls it, too-foo). She likes them both, but not equally! She wanted to eat only blueberries and very little tofu. I thought that was a perfect opportunity to introduce the concept of patterns, in this case AB patterns. One blueberry, one tofu square, one blueberry, one tofu square, etc... She had fun, and learned an important lesson at the same time!

In the future she will use this knowledge in more aspects of her life, such as taking turns and organizing her things.

Chalk Painting

Great indoor activity on a cold (or in our case HOT day here in Arizona)! Rub chalk on the chalkboard and let the kiddos "paint" with water.