Crafting with Little Kids: Homemade puffy paint

Little kids love to get messy. This is a sensory activity that allows them to get as messy as they like with a relatively easy clean up. About a year ago when visiting the Please Touch Museum’s craft room we discovered this fun activity of homemade puffy paint. I was surprised at how easy it was to make and how much fun my son had using it. You may already have all of the ingredients on hand.

Supplies:

• shaving cream, not gel!
• white washable glue, such as Elmer’s
• washable liquid paint, such as Crayola.
• paper
• small mixing bowl or cups (I used plastic snack cups; paper cups work too)
• ice cube tray
• paint brushes, sponge brushes, popsicle sticks, coffee stirrers, fingers-for mixing and painting.
• smock, if your child will wear one

Directions:

Using a small mixing bowl or cup, mix equal parts shaving cream with white glue. (Eyeball it, exact measurements aren’t necessary.) Stir well to combine. Divide shaving cream and glue mixture into smaller cups, or into an ice cube tray. I foung an ice cube tray worked great for this, and it washed up easily. Then add a few drops of colored paint to the shaving cream mixture. Stir well to combine the colors, or leave them swirly. Using coffee stirrers (or Popsicle stickes) worked great for this.

Cover your work surface and lay out paper for your child. Explain that they can use the sticks, brushes or fingers to paint their pictures. The thicker the paint goes on, the puffier it will be when dry. Let them experiment using different tools for the paint application. This type of exploratory, or sensory play, is what kids are best at doing. They can only succeed at this type of activity, as there are no wrong ways to do it!

My son refused to wear a smock, so instead he painted in his undershirt. He managed to not get any paint on him, besides his hands, and that washed off easily. He first was very careful to paint only using the sponge brushes and sticks. Later he decided fingers worked even better, so it ended up being a finger painting session. He had a blast! This is a kid that often hates to get messy, but he really enjoyed this activity. At one point he asked to play with just the shaving cream, so I filled a cup with it and he painted and played with that too. For younger kids who you might not want to give colored paint to, playing with a pile of shaving cream is a great activity.

Let the paintings dry over night and then give them to your child to see how the paint stayed puffy, even after it dried. They can feel the surface of their paintings, which will be 3-dimensional.

I found a great blog post at Not Just Cute about sensory play, if you are interested in learning more about the way little kids learn.

You can find more crafting and preschooler adventures by visiting Diane’s blog Knitting Zeal.