Quick And Easy Kiddo Art

I set this up for the littles the other evening in order to keep them out of my hair while I cooked dinner.  The idea came from Mary Ann Kohl's book First Art, which I've quickly become a huge fan of.  Basically you wet down dark construction paper and let your littles experiment and explore by coloring/drawing on it with chalk.  Kohl mentions that you could even have them wet their own paper with paintbrushes, but as I was in a hurry and didn't want a huge watery mess (inevitable with my boys!) I opted to just run the paper under the tap.  

This kept Short Pants engaged enough that he wanted to do two chalk drawings.  He had a lot of fun experimenting by turning the chalk on its tip and on its side:

 
   

Pita Pocket was more interested in scrunching up his wet paper than drawing, but that was ok too:

As Pita grows I'm looking forward to being able to set up a mini art center for the boys.  Right now we still have to be careful about leaving crayons, etc. within reach without supervision.  Oh, and Pita tends to bite the tips off markers! 

Comments

[Zonnah]

I love this, I will have to give it a try :)

[hiking mama]

Easy open ended art projects are great time fillers! I love art creations with easy set up and clean up. I am a fan of Susan Striker's book Young at Art. Will check out the book you mentioned. My son frequently asks for black paper when he is coloring to make white show up. While he was sleeping in this morning I gathered the materials together on an old cookie sheet so it will be ready next time we need a table activity. I would also love to put together an art table but as we rent I worry about protecting the walls.

Thank you for sharing this activity!

[One hook wonder]

Thanks for the book suggestion! I will take a look and see if the library has it. What a good idea to have an art project set up on a tray and at the ready so you can pull it out at a moment's notice. I'm going to have to start doing that too!

[One hook wonder]

I'd love to see the results!