Art: Toddler Always Easel

Materials Needed:

Thumbtacks or nails

Fat Crayons

Yarn (Lots of different colors)

Easel Paper (or Large Glass Wrapping Paper from your local storage/moving company.)

 

I have a two year old that likes to get into everything that she can (I mean everything!!) as soon as I get to helping Elijah on his school work.  So I needed to leave out some stuff that she could get her hands on for a while, but not make a mess. I sometimes didn’t have time to set out stuff or just didn’t remember.  I found this great idea that has been working for me very well!! 

 

 

I tape these big “wrapping” papers all over the house with different crayons  and as she walks around the house she gets a hold of these and spends around 5 min on each.  All I do at this point is switch out the paper.

 

 

When I want her to get creative I just leave it blank, when we are working on something like a tree for the letter T I draw a half done tree with the big letter T in block letter format so she can color it in. It’s done wonders for me!! 

This works great for those of you who have kids that have a problem with keeping crayons off the wall. You can introduce this method of drawing and art making sure they remember to draw only on the paper. It gives them the freedom with guidelines. Now your toddler can draw anytime she wants without you having to constantly prepare and clean up after her.

Note: Make sure the string is around the middle length of the paper (2 feet).  Mandis accidently went over the paper since the string  length was a lot longer.  Too short won’t give them the freedom to express their artful selves.

 

What they will learn with this activity:

Creativity

Art: Spring Toddler Popcorn Picture

Remember the process of any art project with a  toddler is not the end results, though it may be beautiful, it is the path to it.  Using their little fingers, creativity, coordination is what we are focusing on.  PLUS HAVING FUN!

 

Materials:

Construction Paper (Spring colors:  Blue, Green, White, Pink etc.)

Made Popcorn (Optional: Colored)

Glue

Spring Color Paint

Glitter

 

Let the fun begin!

 

Mandis really loved the Glitter opportunity because I usually don't let her mess with the stuff if I can't be around.

I made her prepare all of her materials so she can also work on steps and instructions. 

Did I mention how great this is for their fine motor skills? Look at her little fingers working hard to get the glue out!

You can also color the glue with food colors to do pastel colors. Makes great spring colors.

 

Try having your toddler count the popcorn (we are working with 17 so we had 16 and I asked her how many more did we need to make 17.

You can put glitter on the popcorn by putting the popcorn in a paper bag with the glitter. Makes for a very pretty scene.

 

Hope you had fun with this simple but yet effective Spring Popcorn Art.

 

Skills they will learn with this project:

Coordination

Working with their Fine Motor Skills

Creativity

Season Awareness

Different Color Pallet exposure (If your working with Pastels)

Numbers