Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Wrap it Up: Art at Kid Level

I'm in love with cheap and easy. Generally more enviro (using what you have, buying less), low maintenance, what's not to like?

Thought I would share our morning adventures on the living room coffee table since for some reason I would never have thought to do this myself, simple as it is.

Our friend Metadog used to do this daily with her toddler. Just cover any low table with paper (we used rolls cause we have lots stashed away but brown bags would be great too if you've got 'em) and let the kids go crazy!



Today we used crayons and paint dotters and rollers. Both kids got in on the action. This was really our baby's first extended experience with messing around with colors. He's still pretty mouthy so we had to keep an eye out for him shoving art supplies in his mouth.





EGirl really enjoyed herself and jumped into chattering, imaginary play as she painted and drew.

This is a wishing well, on the road to Australia.

It's the road to freedom.

We're going to save the finished pieces to use as wrapping paper.

What are your cheap, easy (and green) play options for kids?

5 comments:

Mrs. G. said...

When my kids were younger, we always had at least two art projects going. I would go by wallpaper stores and ask for any sample books they were going to get rid of and we would use the wallpaper remnants to make incredible collages.

Sarita said...

Besides reusing lots of paper? Hmm...not a lot of "green" art happening in our house, which is surprising! I think it is mostly because we haven't done a lot of big art projects yet. We do a lot of drawing and painting, and playing with play dough.

I love the idea of having kids create wrapping paper. I would like to use fabric paints (if they are safe) and paint sheets for my sons bed with my son! How fun would that be to sleep on? I've also liked what I've seen lately where families are turning old artwork into new projects such as creating thank-you cards.

I love the idea of just pulling out all the different art tools to create a big, fun art mess! Mrs. G's idea is fantastic too!

Anonymous said...

at the risk of sounding self-promotional (i'm just too lazy to write it all out), i once blogged about the day hellboy and i took all of BC's broken crayons and made them into big rainbow crayons:

http://wrekehavoc.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/little-man/

was a great way to use all those broken crayons :)

Melanie said...

I'm a big fan of the bowl, funnel, and dried beans at the table play.

Good, clean, stimmy fun.

Laura/CenterDownHome said...

Oh, that's so sweet, mamabird! It makes me teary -- mine are to old to do art projects with me.

We had a friend who owned a printshop and would give us the huge end-roles of posterboard weight paper. It was about 4feet wide and yards left on the role. We could roll it out and trace kids' bodies, then fill in, make posters, draw maps. Your little one could have drawn a really long road to Australia! Then when the paper was used up, we could use the big rolls for castle towers. I'm sure we recycled the paper, mamabird. And we did use both sides. :) Wonder if you can still get an end role? I guess they just throw them away ...