I’ve recently decided to do an activity with the girls every afternoon. While the activities usually last less than a half-hour, I feel it’s beneficial for them to exercise their creativity and get them used to working towards a goal independently. For our first activity, we decided to do finger painting:
A bit tentative about getting her fingers messy
Kids of all ages love to paint. When my children were about a year old, they started realizing that once they were done with their food, it was great fun to smear the rest of the food around their tray. You can easily make your own finger paints for them to exercise their creativity. Simply take 1 cup of soap flakes, 1 cup of cold water starch, and 1 1/2 cups of cold water. Mix together, then separate and add food coloring or powder paint. We placed a large box on the ground, calling it our “painting box,” and let the imagination go.
Cassie didn’t like getting her fingers messy:
Messy - yucky...
So we pulled out some popsicle sticks:
Aurora quickly realized her feet were just as fun to paint with as her hands, and invented feet-painting:
Foot painting - the latest craze
And while the girls saw the activity as a fun and new thing, I liked it for the developmental benefits:
