There are so many ways to approach this activity. Painting by itself covers so many skills – you can talk about colors and shapes, your child can work on their fine motor skills, and both of you can have some artistic fun. All of these methods will probably require adult supervision, but I say just join in! I am going to start with what I believe to be the simplest method and move down to what I have experienced to be the highest degree of difficulty for my toddlers.
TIP: when using multiple colors of paint, I used an old egg carton. It gives them lots of room to dunk their applicators while keeping the mess contained!
Cardboard and Water
Yep, that’s it. A bowl of water, a paintbrush and some cardboard. The cardboard changes shades as it gets wet, which is a great way to introduce the concept of light vs dark colors. You can practice shapes or just wet the cardboard all over!
TIP: I placed their cardboard and water cup inside a cookie sheet that had slightly raised sides. This helped keep an wayward water off my kitchen table!
Marshmallows or Cotton Balls
When I first came across the idea of marshmallows, I was a bit skeptical but this turned out to be lots of fun! I simply poured paint into my egg cartons and put one marshmallow in each well with the paint. My kids brushed with them, dotted them, and dunked them. It was super easy to clean up and of course they got to snack on a non-painted one after. You could do the same thing with cotton balls, but I think that cotton balls are a bit messier and harder to work with due to their fuzzy nature.
Dot Art
This is exactly what you think it is – paint in tubes with a sponge opening that the kids press into their surface that leaves a dot behind. We used these and let the kids do whatever they wanted! There are even work books that can be purchased for toddlers, preschoolers and older.
LEVEL 2 – this same style of painting by dots can be done with Q-tips. However, since the Q-tip is a much smaller applicator and requires greater motor skills and patience, this way is definitely a bit more challenging. What I did was draw just the first three letters of my child’s name (they have longer names) on construction paper with a permanent marker and then had them dot along those letters.
Water Color
This is the type of painting that I remember as a school child. The small rectangle containing the brush and maybe nine colors that I could mix with a bit of water from my cup to paint. I’m going to say that this is probably the most advanced that I would present my toddler with. Like the Q-tip, using the skinnier paintbrush is harder for their level of coordination. You can offset this by giving them a brush with a thicker handle!