Over the last couple of weeks I have been keeping bits and bobs that would usually be heading to the recycle bin. Items such as egg cartons, cardboard rolls from the kitchen, cardboard from deliveries and string came together to make today's fun possible.
It was something that I had prepared as a ready to go to activity. I like to plan things ahead of time as well as just going with the flow play. Sometimes an opportunity will present itself where I can just whip a ready made play set up out and leave them to have fun.
I had squired paint onto trays and plates. It worked out really effective particularly with the rollers. They created beautiful marbelling patterns.
I did a poll over on Instagram because half way through this activity one of my beauties started to paint the tray. 18% of people who answered said they would have stopped their children from painting on the tray.
Although sometimes our initial thoughts can be - 'stay on task and do what the activity is intended for' - we really do limit learning when we put a stop to play and creativity, when we put a stop to it. We should let things unfold naturally and just roll with it where we can. You really can learn so much about the children when you observe rather than interfere. It's so much more enjoyable for us too. We get to experience the mind of a child.
In my experience too - children will often have far better imaginations and play intentions than us.
It was something that I had prepared as a ready to go to activity. I like to plan things ahead of time as well as just going with the flow play. Sometimes an opportunity will present itself where I can just whip a ready made play set up out and leave them to have fun.
It was the first time that we had painted a junk board like this. It was so interesting to watch the boys who were eager to paint but unsure whether they should paint as it wasn't the usual paintbrush to paper activity.
After the initial reassurance that they could paint anything they wanted - they were off! They really took their time, taking in all the bumps they came across with their rollers and paint brushed.
I had squired paint onto trays and plates. It worked out really effective particularly with the rollers. They created beautiful marbelling patterns.
I did a poll over on Instagram because half way through this activity one of my beauties started to paint the tray. 18% of people who answered said they would have stopped their children from painting on the tray.
Although sometimes our initial thoughts can be - 'stay on task and do what the activity is intended for' - we really do limit learning when we put a stop to play and creativity, when we put a stop to it. We should let things unfold naturally and just roll with it where we can. You really can learn so much about the children when you observe rather than interfere. It's so much more enjoyable for us too. We get to experience the mind of a child.
In my experience too - children will often have far better imaginations and play intentions than us.
It was interesting just sitting back and watching them. The zig zag cardboard strips became bridges from the troll so the Billy Goat Gruff was spoken about. There was positional language going on, lots of sharing. There was also talk about the colours mixing and what new colours they had made.
I really enjoyed hearing about how the items of 'junk' (as I saw them) represented something completely different for boys!
The paints we used for this activity were kindly sent to us from Little Brian Art. It's a brand that I would highly recommend. The consistency and vibrancy of the paint is superb. They have such a huge range to choose from now too.
I love the swirls of colours that appeared as their brushes were submerges in the paint.
As you can see they started to flick the paint. A good old Jackson Pollock technique. They loved doing this and being outdoors they had the freedom to just go for it. Dollops of paint splatting everywhere. Didn't it create a wonderful collaborative art project?
As you can see the brushes and rollers got ditched for some good old painting with their hands!!
Lets see this activity in action:
And because I know you all love to see the after photos just as much as the befores - this was how the tray was left.
Nothing that a blast from the hose pipe couldn't sort. We had so much fun - I plan to do something like this again very soon. I would love to do something large scale. Time to get planning.
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