Even toddlers can do these 5-minute painting ideas!
Image and words: Sara Conway
1 Easy print lolly: these lovely lollies made us feel summery on a snowy day.
All you need is paint and a washing up sponge. Your kids just put stripes of colour on the sponge and then print. It’s that simple!
2 Dab print turtle: sponge printing creates a textured shell pattern.
You’ll need: paint, washing up sponge, paper plate, green paper
- Flip the plate so your kids are printing the underside.
- Give them paints to squeeze onto a plate.
- They dip a sponge in the paint and dab it on the plate.
- When they’ve done that, lay a clean plate on green paper so they can draw a head and flippers then snip them out (with your help if needed).
- When the plate’s dry, they glue on the turtle details and draw a face. How fin-tastic!
3 Sponge paint butterfly: a clothes peg and sponge make a perfect butterfly stamp.
You’ll need: washing up sponge, peg, paints
- Squeeze together the middle of the sponge and peg it so it holds a butterfly shape.
- Now your kids can hold the peg while they blob paint all over the sponge. It works best if they cover the whole sponge with blobs of paint.
- Now they use it to print butterflies. Simple!
- They can paint a butterfly body, draw antennae and add googly eyes.
- If they want to go again, they can just add new paint onto the sponge on top of the old blobs of colour.
4 Print a chick
It’s so easy to print a chick. Just give your child a sponge and yellow paint and get them to dab a big blob! When it dries, they can add a paper beak and feet, and stick on some eyes. Or they can try drawing on details with felt tips.
5 Swoosh a rainbow
Get your kids to add stripes of colour to the sponge and then drag it along the page in a rainbow shape. They’ll get a rainbow in one easy swoosh!