Anna Crowley Redding

Portland, Maine – Want a colorful way to drive boredom from your house? We do! And, to tell you the truth, with the bitter arctic cold we’ve experienced this winter, I’m taking every chance I get to change our perspective on spending another day inside.

All you need is some paint, freezer bags and tape. I poured two gobs of paint into each bag (roughly two tablespoons each).

Seal the bag and tape it to the window.

To teach color mixing, I put yellow and blue in one and red and blue in another. I also put like colors together. This a great opportunity to talk about words like ‘hue’ and ‘gradation.’ There are tons of variations to be explored here.

As open-ended play, this activity doesn’t last long (at least with my munchkins). But when you add layers to the activity, they see it in a different way. So we held spelling and writing challenges. You can even “draw” by moving the paint around.

This adds a lot of color to a winter day!

COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA:

1. Resist the urge to get fancy. I added sugar to one bag for a little sun sparkle. Didn’t take long for the grainy texture to create pin sized holes in the bag. You can guess how that turned out!
2. Make sure your children’s nails are trimmed and filed….(not that I learned the hard way : )

Enjoy!

Anna

TODDLER TAKE AWAYS AND PRESCHOOL PERKS:

1. Color Mixing
2. Color recognition
3. Sensory Activity
4. Literacy
5. Writing Practice
6. Fine motor skills
7. Early Science Skills