Daily Creativity – Nurturing the Artist Within – Sponges

Welcome back to Daily Creativity – a series about little things you can do daily that nurtures the artists with in. From cloud spotting, to cutting, to printing! All activities are open ended to focus on what you are doing and not the outcome. Mainy activities will easily take 5minutes here and there. Others may take a little set up (e.g. anything to do with paint!). But the idea is that you do them over and over again and not just once. A great time filler on a rainy day! Today we have Hands On Momma, Jamie visiting. And she explains how she address that problem of a “blank canvas” (which can be quite daunting)! If you haven’t read Jamie’s blog before Hands On As We Grow, you really should, it is jam packed of easy and fun activities for you and your children:

Asking the kids “Do you want to paint?” has a 50/50 chance of a “Yes!” On those lucky days that I get a yes, creativity is about to explode because the kids get full choice of what they want to paint, what with and even how they want to paint it. [Those creative days I look forward to the most, but they don’t always happen, do they?]

However, if I come up with a new way to paint like, “Do you want to paint with sponges and clothespins?”

Sometimes, just by throwing in one of the options for them it takes off the pressure of all the decisions. By giving the kids one of the what they want to paint, what with, or how they want paint, it opens up the creativity for them. [You know how you feel when you’re starting a big project and don’t know where to start? Its kind of the same for them at this point!]

By showing them one option, I’ve intrigued them. They jump at the chance to see how we’re going to paint with clothespins and sponges.

I simply set out a tray of washable paints [but you could also use an edible finger paint recipe for younger kids], cut up sponges and clothespins.

I clipped a couple clothespins onto sponges to show the kids to use them as their handle. But they were free to do as they pleased.

I also had a couple of stencils lying around, so Henry made butterflies by dabbing and smearing sponges of paint across them.

George was more into checking it out. What is this thing we’re painting with?

With and without the clothespin, George explored the paint filled sponged.

Jamie is the baker’s wife and a stay at home mom. Hands on : as we grow is all about the activities that she does at home with the kids [Henry, 4, and George, 22 months]. Lots of practical, easy activities are shared, and learning opportunities are snuck in whenever possible.