Painting with Cans

Inspired by another wonderful blogger Hands on: As We Grow and her post on An Eric Carle Caterpillar, we used unopened cans of pumpkin to paint.

We set up ramp shaped blocks.
Took the labels off two large cans of pumpkin.
Attached the paper to the blocks with a piece of tape.
The children squirted foam paint on the top of the paper. (We get ours from Discount School Supply)
Then they held the can at the top of the ramp and let her roll!

The experience was very fun and the paintings were so colorful.  The rolling can mixed the paint colors into swirled patterns.  They really enjoyed the squirting out of the foam paint and the feeling of it as it covered their hands.

As we did this outside, we did lay down a large piece of butcher paper to keep the cans from getting sandy as they rolled off the ramps.  They didn't roll as far when we moved the activity from the blacktop to the sandy area.

The children got a kick out of the thinking that they "painted with pumpkin".  

Have some fun and give it a try!

Rainbows and spray bottles

Thanks to Deborah at Teach Preschool for this fun idea that we tried today.

She has wonderful detailed photographs on her blog site, so go check them out.  This worked great as an outside activity.  The children especially loved the squirting part.

We had a lot of two year olds today, and many of them just wanted to squirt the water.
Luckily our bull eyes were still up from the mud balls giving them a more appropriate spot to aim than a friend's face.

Rainbow Ooblick

Had a blast today at summer camp with our rainbow ooblick.

We spend most of camp outside, so we have two sensory tables out in our outdoor classroom.
We made ooblick- a mixture of cornstarch and water.
Then we added liquid water colors to the corners and some edges. While the children played with the ooblick, the colors swirled and made this tye dye effect. It was quite dramatic and they loved it.

My 13 year old was even enthralled with the ooblick and spent a lot of her counselor time playing there with the children.

And clean up was a breeze as we could just hose the tables down at the end of camp.