Painting a Smile

I follow a really fabulous blog called NurtureStore.  They are a group based in the UK that posts tons of great play, art, and learning ideas for kids and toddlers.  From time to time they will have a "Kids Art Explorers" challenge and the challenge for this month is "No Paintbrushes Allowed!".  As a teacher, I've had my students paint with lots of different non-brush materials, but Olive hasn't had a lot of experience with it.  I though I would take them up on their challenge, and here's what I came up with:

I took a brown grocery bag and cut it open, but any paper/surface would have worked.  I drew 3 faces on the paper that had teeth.  If you have older children, they can do this themselves.

I got out 3 old toothbrushes that I had been saving for such an occasion - 2 regular ones and one electric toothbrush.  I let Olive pick 3 colors from my box of tempera paint.  She picked red, yellow, and green.  (In my head I was thinking, "Red and green?  Oh that's going to create a brown mess!".  But it really didn't and in the end, it wouldn't have mattered.  This activity was more about the process, less about the product.)

Normally, I'll just let her go to do her own thing when we paint, but for this time I did give her a little guidance.  I suggested that she "brush their teeth".  She did it a few times, but didn't limit herself.  Again, it didn't really matter - she was having fun no matter where the paint ended up.

She was in a really "interesting" mood when we did this.  Most times when we paint, she moves all of the paper, covering the whole thing as well as herself.  This time, she was very delicate with her movements and didn't cover a whole lot of the paper.  I'm wondering if it is because I had her in her high chair?  Normally we're on the ground, free to move.  Maybe she felt like because she was tied in,  her movements should be, too.  Who knows!

The finished product.  

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