As a childminder, my own children do sometimes have to put up with alot, their home full of children, having to keep their own things upstairs, having their bedrooms taken over for naps etc! But one was they do benefit is that they get to join in activities that they are often considered to be ‘too old’ for. If you ask them, they would even say they are too old, but rarely they can resist joining in!
This is one of my favourite activities to do with the children. Ideally I’d like to do it more often, but ideally the weather has to be warm and dry (mainly for the clean up!). Having been particularly wet this year, we finally got round to doing it this week. I laid out big sheets of card across the block paving and added shallow trays of paint. Children were then changed into some of my spare t shirts, clothes generally aren’t wearable again after this activity!
With a bit of encouragement and support, toes were cautiously dipped into the paint.
Others needed no encouragement, maybe I should have restricted them to hands and feet as it quickly escalated into a body painting activity!
Copious amounts of paint applied to the same area apparently make it very slippery, just like ice skating. (I now have no paint left!!)
See what I mean about the body painting!
I added some brushes for L as she did not appear comfortable with the whole hand / feet / body painting.
discovered that paint could also be applied to the block paving – soooo lucky hubbie is at work!
And then cows were added!
The children’s finished work!
Links to revised EYFS:
Prime Areas
PSED (1) 16-26m Plays alongside others.
C&L (1) 8-20m Has a strong exploratory impulse
C&L (1) 16-26m Pays attention to dominant stimulus, easily distracted by noised or other people talking.
C&L (2) 8-20m Developing the ability to follow others body language including pointing and gesture.
C&L (3) 8-20m Uses single words – (paint, hand, foot, car, cow)
PD (1) 8-20m Enjoys the sensory experience of making marks in damp sand, paste or paint.
PD (2) 8-20m Actively cooperates with nappy changing (the clean up!)
Specific Areas
EA&D (1) 8-20m Explores and experiments with a range of media through sensory exploration using whole body (this activity definitely covers this one!)
Characteristics of Effective Learning:
Playing and Exploring:
The children were more confident to explore with their hands as they had done this on previous occasions. They were more cautious about exploring with their feet, but they were willing to have a go.
