I went for a laid-back type project for Easter this year-- painting on cardboard cut-out eggs.
What happened next was really cool. After the he had painted his third egg, I noticed Ethan was painting each egg using a different painting method. When he asked me to help him paint the fourth and fifth eggs, I took a cue from him gave him suggestions for other ways we could apply the paint.
Here are the painting techniques we tried:
1. Paint with a brush
2. Dab with a dry brush
3. Fingerpaint
4. Make dots with a q-tip (Bonus: He loved saying "dots" while he was dotting the paint. "Dots" is a great vocab word)
5. Draw lines with a q-tip (Bonus: "Lines" is also a great vocab word)
Of course, we were using our Easter eggs, but you could paint anything. The idea is to look at alternate ways we can apply paint to the paint surface, encouraging that the toddler pay attention to the painting task in a new way.
There's an unlimited number of methods that you could try. The techniques we used were very basic, but the result was that every egg looked very different.
The activity turned out so well that I can't wait to try this again. Special thanks to my little guy for the inspiration. :)
What are some of your favorite toddler paint techniques?