Prompted by the challenge “Create Against the Clock” at Inspire Me Thursday, Annabelle and I spent this past Sunday afternoon playing with tempera paints. Since I’m hoping she’ll learn a bit about color blending and the color wheel in the coming year, I brought home red, blue, yellow, and white and black paints from the craft store so that we may create other color variations.  For paint containers, we used old plastic food containers (like hummus, butter, and yogurt containers), and for tools, I invested in high quality brushes since they’re likely to get a lot of use.

Here’s what we made:

In 10 minutes, Annabelle achieved this brilliant masterpiece. Not too shabby, if I do say so.

In a little under an hour, Annabelle and I applied purple tempera to a dried, unfinished wood paper organizer that I picked up from a freecycler.

And while Annabelle worked on her 2 paintings, I played with her stamps to make the “mystery box” sign for her box by the same name. It is essentially a homemade version of this mystery box, although far less expensive. To make your own mystery box, repurpose a cardboard box (I used the one that my Nikon arrived in), cover with paper, paint, and other decorative materials. Ask your child to help decorate too.

Playing with the mystery box is a way for toddlers and pre-schoolers to focus on their sensory awareness, by “guessing” or identifying objects in the box based on texture, shape, and feel. For now, Annabelle loves putting her stuffed animals inside the box and playing peek-a-boo with them.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Art, Green Living, Home, Homeschool, Montessori, Recycled Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.