V is for Vegetable Painting Sensory Play
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We are delighted to be taking part in this fantastic series and today we are sharing our activity for the letter V in the A-Z of Sensory Play for kids.
Our favourite arts and crafts activity have to be painting. My nearly 3-year-old daughter Little Miss B is especially keen on it and this is an activity we do a lot together.
She tends to get very hands-on (or more accurately hands in!) during our activities, so what starts out as a simple painting activity often turns into a full-on sensory play experience, as you will see during the activity that we are sharing with you.
Vegetable Painting Activity
An old classic from my own childhood, vegetable painting has stood the test of time and is still a firm favourite with toddlers today. We used carrot, parsnip, potato, broccoli and asparagus for our activity, but you can use any vegetables you have leftover at home.
Some vegetables can be a bit tricky for little fingers to get a good grasp of, so to make this activity a bit more toddler friendly, I cut a small incision into the centre of some of the vegetables and placed a popsicle stick into it for easy toddler gripping.
I then laid out a sheet of paper and squeezed a selection of paints into a tray and sat down alongside her to see what she was going to create. I believe it’s very important to give toddlers plenty of freedom to express themselves and explore the materials supplied. The overall quality of the actual paintings should always be secondary and having fun and getting messy should always come first.
Little Miss B began the activity in a civilized fashion simply dipping her vegetables into the paint and stamping them on the paper. She then started to smear them across the paper to make “rainbows”.
She then decided to make things a little more interesting. I had set out a brush to use to paint the asparagus with and alongside it I had put a cup of water to wash the brush out in. Little Miss B though has more exciting plans for the pot of water.
She decided to try and clean her paint-covered vegetables in it, which is quite clever when you think about it. But then instead of dipping them back into the paint and carrying on, she decided to shake and stamp water all over her picture.
Then came the hands in part of the activity! She decided to “wash” her hands in the pot of water and then paint over them with the remaining paint before splatting them all over her paper.
Luckily I had plenty of paper towels on hand and a bowl of (clean!) warm soapy water to clean up her properly after she had finished her “masterpieces”.
For more sensory play activity ideas, be sure to follow my Sensory Fun Pinterest board and the A-Z's of Sensory Play for Kids series.
Heather Greutman, COTA
Heather Greutman is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant with experience in school-based OT services for preschool through high school. She uses her background to share child development tips, tools, and strategies for parents, educators, and therapists. She is the author of many ebooks including The Basics of Fine Motor Skills, and Basics of Pre-Writing Skills, and co-author of Sensory Processing Explained: A Handbook for Parents and Educators.
It’s great to be part of such a great series! Thanks for the opportunity to work with you on this.
You are very welcome Nicola, thank you for participating!