Salt Painting and Marble Painting!

I've seen both of these ideas floating around on Pinterest and decided today would be a good day to give them a try.

Both are easy but somewhat messy. Still, they were fun and the finished products was very pretty!

Up first...

Salt Paintings


What you need:


White liquid glue
Table salt
Water colour paints or water mixed with food colouring
Spoons
Heavy white paper

How to make it:

I added some water to a small bowl and then dropped in 6 drops of food colouring and mixed. I wans't sure how this would work but it turned out wonderfully. Use less food colouring for more muted colours or more for darker colours.

Give your toddler the glue bottle and let them squeeze it on the paper in blobs and lines (this required some assistance at first).

Then, give them a small dish of salt and a spoon. I placed a sheet of newspaper under the white paper but we still ended up with some salt on the floor and table. Make sure they cover all the glue! Gently shake off the excess salt and throw away or save for another painting (definitely wouldn't want to use for eating).


Then, give your toddler the bowls of "paint" and a spoon and let them go to town with dropping water on the glue!






My little boy did very well with this part but I had to remind him a few times to paint on other parts of the page and to not just make a big puddle in the middle. We also had an incident where a bowl of red "paint" was spilled all over my pants and the floor. Good thing it washes out.

It's fun to watch the colours run, combine and swirl around. And, the salt gives it a shimmery quality.


I gently used some paper towel to blot off the bigger puddles; then, I placed our painting on some paper towel on the counter to dry. I loved the results!


What they can learn:

-Helps with their fine motor skills (handling the spoons)
-Have them identify their colours as you mix them and as they paint
-Also a good way to show how colours mix together to form new colours

Next!

Marble Painting


What you need:

A box or plastic tub
Paints
Marbles
Paper

This one is so easy and my toddler had a blast!

We used an old diaper box and it worked just fine.

All you do is place a sheet of paper in the bottom of your box, add some blobs of paint in different colours and then toss in your marbles and let your toddler shake and tip the box!


The diaper box was a good idea because my toddler like to close the lid and shake the box.

This one is fun because the pictures came out differently each time!

So, there you have two simple and fun crafts to experiment with!