P21 - 10 Different Painting Activities

Hey, today I want to share different kind of paintings you can introduce to your kids. By now you must be knowing that we both love painting activities. She showed her interest while she was a toddler, and I tried to introduce different kind of painting to keep her interest growing in the field.

Before I write about the different type of paintings we did, I want share that introducing art is very important for kids. Art work helps in human development, enhancing the cognitive, emotional and psychomotor part of brain. I am not an expert of this, but I know having a hobby like this helps you a lot relive your stress.

1. Pencil Colour or Crayon Painting:

What you Need:
        - Set of Pencil or crayon colours
        - Paper
        - Pencil 

This is one of the most common kind, I think all the kids start with this one. I simply started with giving paper and some colours. When she was little big, I used to asked her to draw related to topic like about family, class room or any thing she love.

Below are some of her pencil and crayon work.

2. Finger Painting:

What you Need:
        - Water Colours
        - Brush
        - Paper
        - Markers for touchup  
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth  

Touch is one very special sense which helps you feel the things. In finger painting you put colours in your fingers and then place your fingers on paper to make required pattern. Kids enjoy this one the most because they feel the colours in their fingers. Its a must try to get a cute smile on their faces.

Below are some of the ideas for finger paintings.

3. Spray Painting:

What you Need:
        - Water Colours
        - Old tooth brush
        - Paper
        - Stencils or Some drawing cutout 
        - Markers for touchup  
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth  

If you don't have any stencils you need to make one. Making a stencil is not difficult, first draw the picture you want to make and then cut the picture with the help of sharp paper knife. 

Once you are ready with the stencil, spray the colour around the stencil with the help of old tooth brush.  First dip the tooth brush in the water colour and then press the bristles of the brush with your thumb holding the brush bristles towards the paper.

Inu enjoyed doing this one. 

4. Sponge Paintings:

What you Need:
        - Water Colours
        - Sponge
        - Scissors 
        - Paper
        - Some tray for colours or brushes
        - Markers for touchup  
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth  

Sponge painting can be done using a ready make craft sponges or you can make your own cutouts. Draw the shape on a sponge and cut it using a sharp scissor. Put the water based colour in tray and dip the sponge side in the colour, making sure that the bottom side of the sponge is evenly coated with paint. Press the sponge firmly on to the paper to get the painting done. You can also use brushes to colour the sponge from one side, specially if you want multiple colours in your shapes as shown below.

5. Crumbled Paper Painting:

What you Need:
        - Colourful papers
        - Paper
        - Fevicol or any other glue 
        - Pencil
        - Markers for touchups

Draw the shape you want to make. Take the small colour paper and make a ball. Place the ball with the help of glue on the required place. Repeat this to complete the picture. This one is really a time taking activity as making small balls will take a little time. 

6. Glitter and Stones Painting:

What you Need:
        - Glitters
        - Shiny Stones
        - Paper
        - Fevicol or any other glue

This one is very simple to do. First draw the shapes you want to put glitters, then apply the glue evenly in the drawn shape and sprinkle the glitters on the paper. Shake off the excess glitter from the paper. You can also use some shiny stones to decorate your craft. 

7. Vegetable Painting:

What you Need:
        - Water Colours and brush
        - Vegetables like potato and okra
        - Knife 
        - Paper
        - Marker and other colours for touchups
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth 

Vegetable painting is a big fun. Okra by default gives a flower shape if you cut and use. You can give any shape to the potato with knife. Be very careful while cutting the potato. First slice it from the middle and then draw any shape with the help of a marker. Then cut the potato to get your block ready for painting. You can also try other vegetables. 

8. Bubble wrap Painting:

What you Need:
        - Bubble wrap
        - Scissors 
        - Water Colour
        - Some tray for colours or brushes
        - Paper
        - Markers for touchup  
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth  

You can cut different shapes on bubble wrap to start with. Draw and cut the shapes on bubble wrap. Put the water based colour in tray and dip the one side  of bubble wrap in the colour. Press the bubble wrap firmly on to the paper to get the painting done. This is very similar to the sponge painting but give a completely different texture on the paper.

You can also use the bubble wrap painting as a background for some other art work. 

9. Zentangle Art:

What you Need:
        - Pens (you can use special zentangle pens with different width)
        - Paper

Zentangle art is a technique of drawing with repeated patters, you can relate it to mehandi designs. More about this can be found on https://zentangle.com/. The drawing with repeated patters help improve the focus and concentration.

Zentangle is one of my hobbies which I and Inu learnt from Deeksha (my elder sister's daughter).  I was really happy to see that Inu leant it very well. 

10. Brush Paintings:

What you Need:
        - Water Colours or Acrylic Colours
        - Brushes (0 number, flat brush, 4 number) 
        - Paper or Canvas
        - Water
        - Rough Cloth  

I introduced water colours when she was 3 year old. She loved colouring with the brush. She used to dirty all her hands, face, cloths and table while colouring. It was really a fun seeing her face after she finish painting. 

I tried to show her how to hold the brush, how to do boundaries first and then filling colour. Slowly she improved and we could notice that she confined to the given drawing and her colour was not coming out.

After some practice with water colours,  it was a turn to introduce canvas paining. So, we took canvas and acrylic colours. Till now we both have made many canvases, she loves to give her paintings to friends and family.

Few of her creations are:

P20 - How to keep paper tissue dry under water?

Inu asked mummy its been long time we did an experiment, can we do one today. How can I refuse such a cute request, so I started the discussion. I asked her, 'What will happen to a paper tissue, if I put it in water.' She replied, 'It will be wet.' Then I asked her, 'Can you think of a way to keep the tissue dry in water.' She was clueless and asked me to start the experiment. 

What you Need:
        - Paper tissue
        - Bucket or big container full of water
        - Glass (preferably transparent)

I asked her to try with paper tissue kept in a glass. First, she scrunch the paper tissue inside the glass and put the glass inside the water. The tissue gets wet as water entered the glass. Then I asked her what if we turn the glass upside down. She did the glass upside down and put it straight into the water container. During this trial we need to make sure we have enough paper tissue inside the glass so that it wont fall out when you turn the glass upside down. She pulled the glass out to see if the paper tissue was wet or not. 

She was very surprised and happy that the paper tissue was dry. The glass was filled with paper tissue and air. When we pushed it into the water, air did not got any space to go. As air is lighter than the water so it stayed up and kept the paper tissue dry. 

Next, I asked her to repeat the experiment with glass little tilted in one side. This time the air escaped the glass making room for water to go up. So, the paper tissue get wet this time. 

I hope you enjoyed this experiment. If you repeat it please do let us know by leaving a comment. You can also share the post with your friends. Also, follow my blog to get updates about all the activities we do. 

P19 - Why do we see a Rainbow?

One lazy afternoon I was not in a mood to do much so told her that lets grab some book and read. She picked a book gifted by her Bua, 'Little Kids First BIG Book of Why' published by National Geographic Kids. 

Thank you Gudia Bua!!

The book has a discussion about why do we see a rainbow. We studied and repeated the experiment shown in the book so thought of sharing the same with you all. 

First we discussed that Sunlight is made up of different colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. We discussed this while doing the experiment about Sunlight and Colours. We shared that experiment in my earlier post. 

I asked her when do you see a rainbow. 'If its rainy and sunny at the same time we see rainbow', she replied. I explained her that Rainbows are the sun light separated in different colours. When it rains we have water in the air. When the sunlight hits the water droplets in the air, it gets scattered and we are able to see the beautiful rainbow.

Next, we did an experiment to make a rainbow with sunlight and water.

What you Need: 

        - A glass filled with water

        - Paper

We placed the glass of water on the edge of a windowsill where the bright sunlight was coming and placed a paper on the floor below the glass. If you are lucky, you will see the rainbow in the first place. We were not lucky that day so we had to move the glass a little to see the rainbow on the paper.

Inu loved this experiment. Whenever its rainy and sunny both, she search for a rainbow. 

P18 - Greeting Card for Friend

We love to make greeting card without any occasion and it was her best friends birthday. Obviously she was pretty excited to make one. Here I am sharing the step by step photo of how we made this card.  

These are the card sheets we purchased from itsy bitsy to make the card.

Step 1. Cut the two different colour base sheet into the plus shape as shown below in images. The sheets are folded such that it forms a box shape.

Step 2. Prepare the cutout for cake. We used the sponges and decorated it with the glitters. 

Step 3. Make a cover for the box prepared in step 1 with the step shown below. The middle square should be approx 4mm bigger than the middle square of the box. 

Step 4. Place the cake cubes prepared in step 2 and glue it as shown in the picture. Decorate the card as you like.  

Step 5. Cut a small peace of candle and glue it on the top of the card. I forget to take the final picture of the card with candle but it will be looking similar to this. 

Hope you like this card. Please share if you like it and let us know if you make one.

P17 - Power of The Sun

We went to Rajasthan for our Dusshera Break. Inu was very happy to see bright Sun. She knew that the Sun is very good for our body and plants. We discussed benefits of Sun quite a few times but we never discussed that it can be as dangerous as helpful and necessary for nature. Just to show her the power of the Sun, we did an experiment which most of us have done in our childhood. 

I asked her, 'can you generate fire from Sun.' She was confused and said, 'I have never seen Sun light coming with fire.'  I said lets do that today. 

What you Need
        - Magnifying Glass 
        - Paper
        
This time my sister helped her for the experiment. When her mausi is around she wants to do every thing with her, and I love that. Didi helped her put the magnifying glass in between the Sun and paper. 

Within seconds the paper turned black. I remember when we were kids, it used to take much longer to burn paper. This time it was very very fast. 

I explained that Sun light carry a specific amount of energy. These Sun rays are far aware in normal condition (when we are not using a magnifying) and not causing any impact on the paper. Magnifying glass is a special kind of glass which help focus all the Sun rays to one single point. When we focus the Sun rays to a single point in paper, first it turn black and some times catches fire.  

I told her that we can generate energy with Sun which can be converted to electricity. I reminded her about the solar heater we saw once.

She loved the experiment and then Inu and mausi enjoyed writing their names with this technique on paper. 

P16 - Parachute Making

One day while playing I asked her what if I leave this stone in the air, it will fly or it will fall down. She replied, 'Of course, it will fall down.' 

I didn't expected her to know the reason and explained her that it is because of Gravity or Gravitational Force. Gravitational force is the force which is keeping us on earth and help us walk. She can relate to it as she saw moon walk in her favourite 'Peppa Pig' show. We dropped many things in the air to see the impact of gravitational force and as expected every thing fall back on earth. She told, 'mumma every thing has gravity.' It was difficult to explain that the gravity is applied to everything which has mass. Of course I took reference to the moon walk (We cannot walk on the moon as it doesn't have gravity).

As usual how can any of our discussion be completed without experiment  :) and this time it started with noticing about what happen to objects with different mass. So, we took two balls with different weights. I asked her to go on the ground flour and see which ball hit the ground first. I left both the ball with same pressure at same time. And she was happy that her basket ball hit the ground first. 

To my surprise she knew the reasons behind it and said it's because basket ball weights more. I don't know how she understood that but yes she was correct. 

I was confused whether to talk about Air Resistance or it will be little too much for her. Air resistance is a force that works opposite to gravitational force when the object is moving. It is like friction. I thought it will be really too much for her but how can we miss the parachute making activity which is the best experiment to understand this. So, we made a parachute with a plastic bag. 

What you Need 
        - Plastic Bag
        - Disposable cup
        - Wool / String
        - Scissors
        - Measuring tape or ruler

First, we cut a rectangular shape from an old plastic bag and four pieces of equal length strings. Then we made small holes in the four ends of the rectangular plastic and cup; and attached the string as shown in the picture below. 

The most exciting part of the activity began here. Now, we left one cup without parachute and another with parachute. We both observed the air resistance in the cup with parachute, it came down with a really low speed. I tried to capture the parachute falling down.

It was so much fun throwing the parachute down, we did it more than ten times. I was both happy and worried that she can relate it to hot air ballon and parachute ride. Happy because she has good observation and can relate things. Worried as she asked can we also hold this parachute and jump. It took good amount of discussion and experiment (putting her doll in the cup while throwing) added with Youtube videos and pictures to explain her we need a big parachute to hold our weight. She even asked me to build a big parachute so that she can try. I can't do that but I promised that one day I will take you to the parachute ride.

P15 - Water Cycle

The activity, I am sharing today actually started two years back in her nursery school. Her class teacher taught her about water cycle. I am not sure when it was introduced to us when we were kids, but surely not in primary school 😂😂. 

It was not just learning the water cycle, she was supposed to talk about it. It was very difficult for me to make her remember few lines which can explain the water cycle. So, I wrote a poem which she can remember easily. 

When Sun shine heats the water,

Water becomes vapor and goes up in the sky.

Vapor cools down and becomes the cloud,

Clouds gets heavy and fall back as rain.

This is called water cycle.

First time I wrote an english poem. I was very excited and she was very happy to present it in her class.

Now, when she is in Senior KG, again her teacher explained the water cycle. As she is big now, she understood little and asked few questions to me. So, I decided to do the water cycle experiment.

What you Need:
        - One container to make sea
        - Another small container which works as rain water collector 
        - Hot Water
        - Ice
        - Fruit wrap
        - Some stones and plant cuttings (optional) to give a feeling of earth

We added hot water to the big container and placed a small container in it. We decorated the small container with few plant cuttings and stones. Then we quickly wrapped the big container with fruit wrap. This fruit wrap will not allow the vapour to go out. Ideally, you should use the normal water and keep this container in Sun. But, it was very difficult to boil the water using sun light in a rainy season.  So, we took hot water.

The hot water got vaporised and started to move up (Evaporation). We also placed few ice cubes above the fruit wrap to give a cool environment for condensation. The water vapour convert into the tiny water droplets because of the cool environment, this is known as condensation. 

As more and more water droplets are formed, they started to combine. The big water droplets fall down because of temperature change as time passed, this is known as precipitation.  Inu was not interested in precipitation, she happily sad, 'mumma, this is rain'. We kept the ice cubes above the collector container so that all the rain gets collected in the collection container. After some time we removed the fruit wrap and saw the water collected in small container. 

The next day, it was a rainy day and I said what a lovely rainy day it is. And Inu quickly replied, 'mumma, sea water is coming in our city through rain.'

P14 - Water can walk?

Inu was very excited in our last experiment (P13 - How plants drink water?) due to some magic feeling and beautiful colours. So, she asked, 'mumma can we do more colourful experiments?' I replied, 'Yes sure', as I wanted to show one more Capillary Action Experiment. 

I asked her, 'have you ever seen water flowing from up to down?' She said, 'mumma that always happen. Have you not seen the waterfalls.' Then I asked her, 'have you ever noticed water walking from down to up?' As I was expecting she replied, 'its impossible.'  I happily told her today I will show you water can walk up. 

I asked her fill two glasses with water and roll paper towel as shown in picture.

What we need:

        - Three glasses

        - Water

        - Paper towel

        - Food Colouring

Then we mixed different food colourings in two glasses and put the folded paper towel in the glasses such that one side of the paper towel roll is in the filled glass and the other side is in the empty glass.

After few seconds only, Inu observed water walking up through paper towel. She was very excited about it and asked is it also magic. I explained, its not magic, its actually science.  The water is moving same as it was moving up in the flower in our last experiment. The small small holes in the paper towel give space of water to go up. 

The paper towel have gaps in fiber, and water moves up in these gaps through  capillary action. She liked this one and observed the other glass getting filled with this process. 

She also observed that the water movement stops when all three glasses have same amount of water. 

She wanted to do more of this so I asked her to repeat the experiment with different type of solids. She repeated it with newspaper, glossy paper and cloth.

The water walking speed is maximum in cloth, then newspaper. In glossy paper it didn't move as the glossy paper don't have gaps. 

After the experiment is finished while washing the glasses Inu asked, 'mumma how did you know that water can walk'. We both enjoyed this experiment and learnt more about how capillary action allows water to move through solids. But I liked her question after the experiment the most. And the answer of her question took me to my childhood. 

I remember once when we were going out for vacation, my mom was worried about the plants we had. We use to have a lot of tree and pot plants in our backyard garden. So, mumma and my sister was trying different solutions. The drip irrigation was available when we were kids. For some of the pot plans they dip one end of rope in water tank and other in the pot and I observed the water walking up through the rope. Inu likes it and said nani and mausi are awesome. Of course she did repeated this in our balcony garden but I forgot to click the pictures.