Friday, February 19, 2010

A Messy Mood.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a mess, sometimes I'm not. Ya know what I mean? There are days when I just don't want to have to clean up anything else. But, I've come to the conclusion that messes are good sometimes, especially creative ones...as much for me as the kids. They need to create and go a little crazy sometimes and it's fun for them, and I want them to have fun and experience things. Monday was one of those "in the mood for a mess" days for me. I decided to mix up some fingerpaint and let them go crazy. With some guidelines of course.
1. The paint stayed on the cookie sheet or plastic drop cloth.
2. The paint was not to go on our face or in our mouth.
fair enough, right?
Here's "A." She enjoyed this very much!
tiny fingers dipping.
"K" was not so sure he liked the feeling of it.
"A" on the other hand loved how it felt.
It wasn't that horrible of a mess although, when it dried a little it was a bit tricky to wipe up. A little elbow grease did the trick. I also use a plastic tablecloth that I recylcled from one of "K's" birthdays that I use for art projects. For smocks, I made holes is large garbage bags, which can be reused for future messes. :)

To make your own fingerpaint; mix together equal parts flour and cold water.
Separate into small bowls and add food coloring. That's it.
I found the fingerpaint recipe at Creative Kids.

What do you do when you're in a messy mood? I love to hear your ideas!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I use to put my kids in the shower with a large piece of paper tapped to the wall and let them loose with finger paints. They were usually in just underpants (or diapers). When all was done, I would take the paper out and just wash them and the shower off. Mess went down the drain! It worked great!

Miss seeing your beautiful face,
Colleen

P.S. I'm doing your crockpot chicken today. Can't wait to try it!! Smells FABULOUS!!

Dave Bode said...

We do that too. Naked finger painting is fun. Since they are in the shower anyway I let them paint on the paper, the walls the tub floor, their bellies....So fun!

Jenny said...

I wish that messes only happened around here when I chose to let them! :)

Our "mess" of choice is homemade play dough, although we do paint (usually with brushes)sometimes as well.

I used to have a formica-topped kitchen table and I would let the boys finger paint with shaving cream. It was a left-over idea from when I used to teach preschool--the shaving cream was fun for the children and had the added bonus of removing any dried-on paint, glue, etc. from the tables while also not staining the children's hands. Not sure if it could be done on a wood table without damaging the finish, though!

You're reminding me that I need to pull out the finger paints for my little guys. I have some stashed around here somewhere...

G. said...

I love the naked fingerpainting idea. My kids would love that! The tub idea is awesome too!

MOMSWEB said...

Enjoy your messy moods because they will completely cease when the children are older. I can't seem to get them out of their messy mood rooms! LOL!

Enjoyed visiting your blog!

Brenda @ Tie That Binds Us said...

fun! looks like this was a big hit. I'm going to have to try this.