Toddler Tuesday - clean painting activity

paint in a bag.

This morning the hubby took A to art camp so I could stay home and do stuff. I think he expected me to clean, while I had other ideas in mind J I worked on putting Velcro on popsicle sticks so C can make shapes with A later in the school year, did a load of laundry, and played outside with C. Once it got too hot to be outside, we came in and C said he wanted to paint…. Oh boy.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to paint with kids, A did it all the time and it was super fun, but the house is on the market and we are trying to keep it super clean so painting makes me really, really nervous….

However I didn’t want to deny C the opportunity to paint, so I pulled the table far away from the blinds, covered the floor with a towel and gave him paint in a plastic bag that I taped down to the table.  He played with that for about 3 seconds before he was bored(personally I don’t blame him, it was lameo). Then I figured I could use brown paper taped down to get the same neatness factor but more fun.  So, I taped down a large piece of  brown paper to the table top and gave C strict instructions that paint did not cross the black tape lines.  Once I gave him the paint, we named the colors – he really only knows blue out of the primaries. The he had at it while I crossed my fingers and held my breath. I also washed some dishes and talked to my sister on the phone for a few minutes.

Pushing the paint around
with his bulldozer

I gave him 3 different sized brushes, a bunch of cars/trucks, and some plastic animals and people.  He had a blast using the bulldozer to move the small globs of paint, running the vehicles through the paint, and painting the people and animals. Did he make a mess? NOPE! I love this kid J Of course he did made paint hand prints so we cleaned up before he even got out of the kitchen area.  I think I may have found a safe way to paint.

Now, if I could just get to that cleaning…….

See, no paint outside the lines!