Friday 18 September 2015

Painting with guns

Fancy a completely new way to paint? Grab some cheapie water guns and I guarantee fun for all your kids!



I first saw the idea here but they used easels and blank sheets of paper and were quite a lot older than D. So I changed it up a bit to make it more appealing for him and came up with something a bit more "toddler friendly" :)


What you need:
 
-  Plastic water guns - I got a pack of 4 from Poundland. Work perfectly and hold a decent amount of paint without there being a lot of wastage.
-  Paints (am sure most kinds will work - we used the regular kids paint from Poundland)
-  Paper
-  Some sort of groundsheet if you're doing it inside or on grass

Mix the paint with a bit of water (I did about 2:1) so the paint is more easily "squirtable" and then carefully pour into a gun. Repeat for as many colours as you want (or for however many guns you have!). I made 4 colour guns.


As you can see in the pic I drew a standard target on one side and some shapes on the other. I thought this would engage D much better than just a blank sheet of paper, and it did. He loved trying to aim for particular places and choosing which colour to squirt in which shape. 



Although supposed to be something fun it also led to colour and shape recognition practice - fun learning is always a bonus!

 
D sat and squirted for ages, only stopping when all the shapes/target had been fully coloured in. There was quite a lot of "run-off" because the board was at an angle so I actually wedged some kitchen roll along the bottom so the paint got absorbed straight away (you can see it underneath the wooden frame in the picture above).
 
For us this was all about the process and so we used a massive piece of paper. If you wanted to keep the artwork afterwards you could always cut out smaller pieces once dry or just use smaller paper pieces to start with.


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We had so much fun with this activity and will definitely keep revisiting it, especially as it is something even much older kids (or adults!) will enjoy so no chance of my kids growing out of it!!


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