Mirror Painting

While looking for ideas to do with our night time theme, I came across painting on mirrors and now wondering why it has taken over 25 years years in childcare to discover this fun activity! I bought some A4 mirrors from ImagiDo as I know I will use them for other activities throughout the year. The children ended up spending the morning enthralled by it, first using the mirror as a mirror, giggling at their reflections, what they could see behind them etc before deciding to try the paint.

I put out a mixture of normal paint and some glitter paint, as they started to paint they talked about how they could still see their reflection and then they would paint over their reflection, giggling saying "now I can't" and repeating this till the whole mirror was covered in paint.

They then discovered by dragging the paint brush through the paint and /or twisting it around they could produce different patterns.

Washing up produced more interest as they realised the water made different patterns as the paint was washed away and that they could see their reflection again.

It was then back to the table to start painting again, they repeated this several times.

They attempted hand prints on the mirror

which left behind an interesting pattern.

They also enjoyed writing and drawing patterns on the mirrors.

I can see this will be an activity that will be asked for again and again, also thinking how ell this would work for fire/firework patterns, will have to remember this for next year when we do fireworks. Also be good to see if the children could paint their reflection in the mirror.

Marbling Leaves

This has got to be our favourite Autumn craft, the fun of creating the pattern leaves, the giggles as they get to play with the shaving foam and paint after we have finished the leaves and the lovely finished product to put on our wall.

I covered a tub with shaving foam, smoothing it down with a spatula.

Then carefully poured paint over the foam.

Then taking a stick, carefully draw lines through the foam/paint mix so you get a marbled effect.

Gently press you leaf shape in the paint mix and remove carefully.

Then with a piece of stiff paper, carefully scrape of the excess paint/foam, you want to gently drag it along the paper not pressing down hard.

Finished result.

They then had fun with the remaining paint/foam mix, squishing it through their fingers, pretending to wash their hands and drawing patterns in the tray, as the foam disappeared they kept asking for more foam, ended up using a whole tin of shaving foam and very happy children.

Autumn Tree

The little ones enjoyed rhyme time this morning and we made it home without being rained on. While they enjoyed their snacks, I set about sticking up the tree I had cut out and then covering it with sticky back plastic, non sticky side to the window. The little ones were getting very excited about what I was going to do next and asked lots of questions as I put out bowls of different Autumn stickers, leaves etc for them to stick on the plastic. This is an activity I seem to do most Autumns as it is a big hit with all ages. You can see some of the photos of last years tree here. From previous experiences it looks lovely when the you have bright Autumn day and window jsut glows with the autumnal colours, unfortunately today is rather overcast and miserable looking.

Wind Spinners

We've been thinking and talking about the wind today, from gentle breeze to strong gales/storms, we've enjoyed reading the Usborne book The Windy Day and Percy the Park Keeper After The Storm. I read through Christina Rossetti's poem Who Has Seen The Wind?

Who Has Seen The Wind?

by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

I love the poem and I asked the children if they can see the wind? If they were inside how would they know if the wind was blowing and how would they know if it was a gentle wind or a strong wind?

We made some paper plate wind spinners, they were given the choice of pencils, felt pens or paints, they chose pens and pencils. Looking at them later and fact that some of my artists are very young, bright paints would of been more effective but that's just my personal opinion.

So they set about decorating their plates.

When they had finished, I cut them out and attached a bit of string to the middle to hang it up with.

When they were finished, I pegged them out onto the washing line and we watched them gently spin in the wind, luckily the wind was only a gentle breeze. They kept coming back to them and if they weren't spinning, trying to make them move by making a breeze themselves, either by blowing on them or waving their arms.

I remembered watching and enjoying Come Outside, with my other two children, do have video but no longer have a working video player but thanks to you tube found this episode, Come Outside - A Windy Day. The children really enjoyed it, the episode starts with the poem I had already read to them and she tells the story of The North Wind and The Sun, one to add to my weather planning, had completely forgotten about this story.

More Brown Bear Activities

Today we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? the children are really remembering the story and are joining in regularly as I read to them. We then made our own colour book based on the colours in the story, I used some stencils I already had but had to make some up for the frog, bear and duck. I read the page out from the book as we painted each animal.

When they were dry I wrote out each animal plus their colour and stapled the book together.

When the books were finished the little ones enjoyed sitting and reading their stories, making up various events as they went. Later on I used their books for a movement activity, as we read each page I asked the children how they thought that animal would move, to say there was lots of giggles was an understatement as they tried to decide how to move. There was some debate as to whether a dog and cat moved in the same way as not. They then decided to go through the book again this time adding the animal noise as they moved like the animal.

A favourite activity with my little ones is playing with my pots of coloured buttons, sometimes, making patterns, other times using our coloured bowls to sort colours. Today they did some colour sorting and counting.

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The Brown Bear story has been a big hit with the children. This morning, I had one little one, sitting with the book, turning each page and telling the story from memory. Last night when I put my own littlest to bed, I was asked to make a brown bear song instead of our normal bedtime song. it went something like this.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear 

What do you see

I see Mummy Bear

putting on L's music

Mummy Bear Mummy Bear

What do you see

I see Little L

all ready for Bed

Little L little L

what do you see

I see my cot waiting for me

More No Mess Painting

I've tried different types of no mess painting over the years, in ziploc bags, card wrapped in cling film but this has got to be the easiest and most robust that I have tried to date. I will state I have no problem with the mess that normal painting makes, it's about trying something different, seeing how paint etc moves.

Anyway last night my husband came in from work and thought I had finally lost the plot, as I was filling laminator pouches with paint and ironing them on the ironing board to seal them. I sealed two sides of the pouch, before I opened it out and poured a fair amount of paint in, then carefully lay it down and seal the other two sides with the iron on cool setting.

I had planned this activity for the babies but it wasn't long before the older ones joined in. They had fun, not just moving the paint around when the pouch was on the table, they held the pouch up and watched the paint move from one end to the other and then tipping it back the other way. Then they held them up on a sunny window and drew on them, it looked brilliant, an activity to do on a light box, me thinks. Definitely will be doing this again in the future, in the meantime, the pouches I've made will last a while.