do you paint?

I took my 27 month old twins to the Library today for storytime. After the story they do a craft-today they painted. This was the first time they had ever painted-they loved it, the tried to eat it, they had no idea what it was. I felt so guilty, like they should have been introduced to this before (the week before they did playdough-another first for m twins). Do you paint with your 2 year olds at home? If so how do you do it? I feel like I don't do enought to enrich them, other than books and regular toys, we don't do nearly enough exploration-am I a bad mother?

 

I took my 27 month old twins to the Library today for storytime. After the story they do a craft-today they painted. This was the first time they had ever painted-they loved it, the tried to eat it, they had no idea what it was. I felt so guilty, like they should have been introduced to this before (the week before they did playdough-another first for m twins). Do you paint with your 2 year olds at home? If so how do you do it? I feel like I don't do enought to enrich them, other than books and regular toys, we don't do nearly enough exploration-am I a bad mother?

 

If you're a bad mom, then so am I. I like to avoid the overly messy activities. They'll have plenty of opportunity for art when they go to preschool. Play doh has been a favorite here for a couple years now, so I can't imagine not always having a big case of it.

If you want to give them opportunity to paint without the mess, get an aquadoodle and let them use water and paintbrushes instead of the pen that comes with it.

 

No we don't. I actually have the paint and playdough but have not been brave enough to try it yet. They make such a mess with crayons that I can't imagine what they would do with paint.

 

I kind of felt that same way when we started our Toddler class. All the other kids totally knew what to do and mine also just wanted to eat it, stick their fingers in it, etc...

Being exposed to it on regular basis now has helped. It's nice to do it at school where the teacher cleans it up! We have not yet painted at home.

Like Trish, crayons cause enough havoc!

 

Yes I have painted with both sets from around the age yours are. I don't think not having painted with them yet makes you a bad mother though.

What I used to do was either take off their tops or put on something old and roll up the sleeves, then put an apron on too (now we just roll sleeves and wear aprons unless it is something really messy like finger painting). You could also try putting them in their high chairs if you think they might not stay sitting at a table. Do the painting in a room with hard flooring or, if that's not an option, put down a splash mat to save the carpet. Also when they were only just two I would give them very small amounts of paint and only 3 or 4 colours. We had non-spill paint pots. The other thing we had (and still use), that are brilliant is these paints that come in small bottles and have a built in sponge tip-like these. They make far less mess than poster paints. I highly recommend them.

One other thing; I would always try to do things like painting just before our TV time, because it gave me an easy way to get them away from the painting ("who wants to go and watch Dora?!") and then I had 20 minutes to clean up the painting area without worrying about them wandering back and getting messy again.

 

We started out by putting an old sheet over the table & old t-shirts on the kids. They still love painting. You could always try it outside on the driveway. We also painted pumpkins instead of carving.

 

I painted with my girls at that age. I had them wear a big shirt that they could get paint on and it didn't matter (we call it our craft shirt and do all crafts with it, play doh, glueing, painting, etc.). I started out by giving them each a small amount of paint and only one color to use each, then I would switch their colors after a little while. When they started to get better and understood more about painting I would give them each two colors and then switch. If you're worried about the mess or them eating it you could also start out with the water color books where you just use water until the understand what the brush is for and then add paint slowly. You could also use pudding so if they eat it it's no big deal.

 

Mine eat at the table now with booster chairs, so I use their old highchairs for them to do crafts on. so far, we've done coloring with crayons and markers, playdoh, and finger painting. they loved the finger painting. I'm going to do the aquadoodle with a paintbrush next.

 

We do play-doh, finger paints, crayons/coloring books or paper here. For finger paints I put them in their high chairs and put men's dress shirts on them backwards as smocks. I put paper grocery bags on the table and then give them a paper plate with a dab of each color and a piece of finger painting paper. Be ready with a wet rag and be prepared for washable paints not to wash out completely! We also do play doh and coloring in their high chairs (pushed up to the table). For play doh I got a bunch of plastic shape cutters to make shapes with and they love that. HTH