Arts & Crafts

Just curious what kind of artsy stuff you are doing with your toddlers. I have a 17 month old and she loves coloring. Has anyone tried finger painting? I'm just afraid it would end up in her hair but I supposed that's half the fun. Also, what about play-do? Introducing scissors for cutting shapes, etc...Please share your ideas. Thanks!

ooh woody - fabulous idea. Will have to consider that for Christmas this year. I like it.'


My 27 month old loves glueing things on. so we get on the floor, get some blue and I just cut things from magazines and she uses a glue stick and plasters things all over the paper. (and some on the floor and some on my foot...but it's all removable.)


at her school, they painted with "q-tips" and it seemed to work really well. she came home with a fabulous masterpiece (a watermelon with seeds) and it was really nice.


another nice thing that they did in school was they put out big pieces of butcher paper on the floor and traced each child's body in a pose. Then they let the kids decorate it however they wanted- provided stickers and bits of fabric to glue. Of course my 26 month old had the weirdest stuff glued to the weirdest places and had put blue stickers for her eyes (shes Korean so no blue eyes) but she had a blast doing it and it was just a big space. Her teacher coached her a bit and talked about the color of her shoes and what color socks she was wearing so she got in the approximate area socks and shoes on the picture's feet. HAHAH. All in all, a fun project.

put some different sized marbls in a thick amount of paint and then using a spoon scoop the marbles out and onto some plian white paper. The paper should be in a baking tray (one with fairly high edges) use the same sized paper as tray. Then moves the traay around and the marbles will roll in different directions leaving a lovely pattern.

Messy play is always fun and if you mix corn flour with some water it and a few drops of food colours it's great fun trying to pick up the goup.

Fill spray bottles with food colouring and water to spray paint large pieces of paper.

Wet calk and draw with it then when finish the picture spay with hair spray to keep the chalk from rubbing off the paper.

Getting the kids to help you make playdough is fun also.

Thank you everyone for those great ideas!