Toddler Art: Watercolors

This group is always well-behaved, but today was exceptional! They were so attentive and quiet during storytime, I was able to read two board books and I was proud of them for their sharing skills too.

We read One Rainy Day by Tammi Salzano and Listen to the Rain, a Rookie Toddler Scholastic board book. 

Our theme was watercolors, so I read books on rain and got to our crafts. For our first craft, we discovered resistant art. I used white crayon and drew raindrops onto their sheets of white watercolor paper. Then they used thick paint brushes to paint their paper blue with liquid watercolor. This made the raindrops appear. The toddlers got a surprise to see the raindrops and they also had practice holding a paint brush.

Their second craft was experimenting with the watercolor palette. I put out clothespins with pom poms and they got them wet and then dipped them into their watercolors. They could paint however they wanted, but all of these turned out beautiful and with a sunset feel. This gave them a chance to just play with watercolors. They also could glue on a tulip die-cut to their paper if they would like.

Afterwards, we had some playtime and the group was so good with sharing the toys!

This was another fun one!

Preschool Picasso: Watercolors

This was Preschool Picasso's first time introducing watercolors to the group and I think it ended up being a fun change for the kids. We read Blue Chicken, about an artist painting a barnyard scene only to have one of it's chickens come to life and spill blue paint everywhere.

I wanted to using droppers for one craft activity and then have the group use the color pallets for another. For the first craft, I mixed blue watercolor paint with water and had the kids use eye droppers to drop paint all over their paper with chicken on it, just like in the book. The kids had fun using the droppers and everytime I've used these, they've always been well-liked.

For the second craft, they painted their own sunset for their barn. I put out the watercolor pallets and they had fun coming up with all sorts of techniques for making their sunset. Afterwards, they glued on the silhouette of a barn. I was glad this gave them an opportunity to create their art any way they liked with the watercolors.

Though there are tons of picture books using watercolors in illustrations, this one best fit what I was looking for-a short and sweet book that could easily tie-in with crafts.