(aka I let the baby fingerpaint)
I was feeling quite brave this afternoon, or perhaps just slightly insane, and decided I would let J-jo fingerpaint. He's all of ten months. I never let Bear fingerpaint until she was 13 months. But there we were with nothing to do and time to spare before dinner. Bear wanted to stamp with her $1 foam letters from Walmart. She was working on stamping her name and had no interest in my attention for once.
(I set her up with the letters on the left, the stamp pad in the middle and the wet sponge on the right for her to wash off the ink from the "stamps". She'd already stamped her name, so I just covered it up with BEARS for the photo.)
I plunked J-jo into his booster seat and put a piece of paper on his tray. I squirted a few colors of paint and let him explore. He was tentative at first, but explored on his own.
But he kept wanting to crumple up the paper. So I came up with a way better way to let a ten month old fingerpaint.
Put the paint directly on the tray.
This worked wonders...
...except that he decided, just as with the flour on the tray, to lean his whole face down on the tray to better experience it.
Of course, I needed to preserve his first masterpieces.
How?
We turned them into prints!
I pressed a piece of paper (which of course he tried to attack) onto the tray.
But he kept wanting to crumple up the paper. So I came up with a way better way to let a ten month old fingerpaint.
Put the paint directly on the tray.
This worked wonders...
...except that he decided, just as with the flour on the tray, to lean his whole face down on the tray to better experience it.
Of course, I needed to preserve his first masterpieces.
How?
We turned them into prints!
I pressed a piece of paper (which of course he tried to attack) onto the tray.
I don't know where I saw this, but I saw it today on someone else's blog. They used sugar instead of flour for their child to play with.
ReplyDeleteYou are one brave lady!!! Now that you've done it and have survived, I think I'm going to have to try and let my baby girl do the same.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! My mom used to let her babies finger paint with yogurt - I think she added food coloring. Doesn't make prints you can save, though.
ReplyDeleteHow about using pureed food for finger painting...that is, if you don't mind that not all will go in the mouth.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I posted the link to Amazon for the puzzle. Hope they enjoy it!
http://joyfullearner.blogspot.com/2010/06/building-literacy-through-puzzles.html
How in the world have I missed for so long that J-Jo and Jesse were nearly the same age?!
ReplyDeleteYou are brave!! There's no way I could do this yet:-).
Just curious where did you purchase the alphabet foam shapes puzzle? More precisely the name of the brand- PS I am in Australia
ReplyDeleteCheryl H
@Cheryl - I found it at Walmart. Do you have those in Australia? They were only a dollar.
ReplyDelete