Adventures with a 1 year old- Finger Painting

Lately I feel like I've been a lazy mom. I've lacked the motivation to take Blake to the playground because at the time of this post, we are experiencing a heat wave. And after a few days of being inside, playing with the same toys, the same games, the same books, we were ready for something new. I read that at 16 months, toddlers might enjoy scribbling with crayons. Obviously at this age Blake won't be able to sit quietly and color. In fact, sitting is never involved in anything he does except eating.

I took out some crayons and paper for him to play with the other day while I was making dinner. He spent about 2 minutes scribbling and then ran off with the crayons. Not wanting to scrub the walls of stray crayon marks, I chased him down and the crayons haven't been out since. I wasn't surprised at how our adventure with crayons went and his art work is even hanging on our fridge now.

Trying to break free of this bout of laziness, I decided finger painting would be fun to try with Blake. But with Blake's habit of tasting everything, I knew I didn't want to use actual paint. I saw a "recipe" for home made finger paint made with flour, water, and food coloring and whipped up 5 different colors for Blake to use.

I used small ziploc containers to mix the ingredients. I didn't really measure anything. I just added water or flour to get the consistency I wanted. Then I used a 9x13 pan to store all the materials we'd need. (paint, bowl of water and baby wipes for cleaning up). Then we headed outside to paint!

Instead of a paintbrush (because we don't have one), I gave Blake a wooden spoon to use.

 

 

We used the wooden spoon, a stick, a leaf, and our fingers to paint. Blake tasted the finger paint a few times, but I didn't have to freak out because I knew it wouldn't hurt him.

Overall, I think our finger painting experience went pretty well! It's definitely an activity I'll do with him again in the future.

It started to rain while we were painting, but we opted to stay outside and play. We usually walk a half mile to a playground to play in the sprinklers, so why not take advantage of nature's sprinklers, right?