Preschoolers love to get messy and explore, to be creative and express their imaginations. Paint is the perfect medium for various projects and learning activities for kids ages 3 to 5.
10 Fun Ideas for Painting with Your Preschooler
We’ve collected ten great ideas for painting with your preschooler. Each of these submissions has been provided by permission from the original bloggers. We encourage you to visit their blogs and follow them on their social media channels.
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Three Uses for Sidewalk Paint
On a sunny day, there’s nothing better than taking the mess outside and letting children explore colours and art on the sidewalk. BC Family shares three uses for sidewalk paint—and all you need is water, cornstarch, and food colouring! Read more here.
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Handprint Turtle
Your child can use his or her handprint to make a turtle! Author Janis Cox explains how to create a turtle and decorate his shell. All you need is tempura paint, glue, paper, a large plate, paint brushes and found materials (like shells, glitter, twigs, etc). Read more here.
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Painted Name Rocks
Combine paint, rocks, and letters of the alphabet to make a cool craft for your preschooler. Jen of Mama Papa Bubba explains how collecting rocks on a walk turned into craft time with her daughter. Read more here.
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Snow Paint
Whether you get snowy winters or not, you can have a snow day with this fun snow paint! Mom Endeavors shares ideas for creating snow paint using shaving cream and glue on paper. Read more here.
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Science Activities with Paint
Paint can be used to teach your preschoolers about simple science concepts. Sarah presents three paint projects (along with books) and what concepts/skills your child will learn. Read more here.
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Summer Daisies
Use your preschoolers hands and feet to create a painting of summer daisies. This makes a great keepsake or gift for the grandparents. Paula over at Beauty Through Imperfection explains how she helped her kids make their hand and footprints into a picture. Read more here.
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Cookie Cutter Painting
Jen at Mama Papa Bubba let her preschooler use cookie cutters for painting. This would be a great way to teach shapes or letters for preschoolers or to have a themed craft day. Read more here.
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Dinosaur Tracks Matching Activities
Use dinosaurs, paint and paper to create a fun matching activity for your preschooler! Mom Endeavors explains what her children thought of this idea. Read more here. (Psst—this craft would also work great with trucks/cars and other small plastic toys that are easy to wash when you are finished with the paint!)
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Rainbow Iceball
Use a balloon, food colouring, and ice to create a cool art project for your preschoolers. Read more here.
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Painting with Rocks
Teach your children about using different mediums and techniques for creating art by painting with rocks. Fantastic Fun and Learning explains how her kids created masterpieces just using rocks, paint, and paper. Read more here.
Have fun and be creative! For more preschool activity ideas, check out our preschool resource page.
Written by Bonnie Way and originally published here on 5 Minutes for Mom on Aug 5, 2013.
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This is really cool ideas for engaging kids in the activities where they will learn how to use their innovative ideas
Wow! I just started teaching at Children Of America and I am totally going to do the dinosaur tracks pain project. I’ll share this with my fellow teachers! Cheers!
Wow!! I love such painting with my kid….even she do in their preschool also.
Thanks for including Tadeo Turtle in your round-up.
Blessings,
Janis http://www.janiscox.com
What great ideas! I am bookmarking this page. We will definitely paint with my son’s dinosaurs!!
My daughter loves to paint! Thanks for all the great ideas!
Oh I love painting with my kids! All of their artwork they make is just precious!
Very cool! When we were doing alphabet school, we’d try to paint with a medium that started with the letter of the week; e.g. painting with feathers for “F” week. Some very creative things that way…
I am mess adverse when it comes to art, so I have a hard time getting the kids to do art. But these are great ideas!
i can’t wait to try the snow paint.
These are all fabulous but my favorite is the cookie cutters because it’s so easy! =)
I love the handprint turtle and daisies, they are so cute and a remembrance of how small your child’s hand is
Wow these are a lot of great ideas. I will be pinning these, thanks.
that’s a lot of fun, I want to play, too
I’m definitely going to do some of these with my kids. I can’t wait to try the ice ball one.
These are great ideas and such cute artwork.
lovely ideas for my preschooler!
What fun ideas!
Thanks for including our popsicle paint project!
Sarah Normandie
Such a great round-up! Thank you for including our projects! 🙂
Thank you so much for including our Ice Ball Painting! So many wonderful projects here! Love it!