I wanted to do some Halloween themed crafts with the children but it was important to me that if they were producing an end product, it was one that they had achieved themselves.
I decided that marble-rolled spiders webs were a developmentally appropriate activity, something they could achieve themselves with a little guidance.
We had just over half an hour before lunch, which I thought would be ample time for this activity.
I gave each of the children a shallow dish lined with card and provided a small bowl of slightly watered down black paint and some marbles.
After modelling to the children how to dip the marbles in the paint and then move the bowls to get them to roll around and leave marks, they were keen to have a go.
At first things more or less went to plan. Some of the children chose to move the marbles round with their hands as opposed to moving the bowl, but that was fine.
However, it was the dipping of the marbles in the paint that seemed to lead to a slightly different direction with the activity.
The children seemed to particularly enjoy the dipping part, they dipped more than was necessary and found that painted fingers could be used to make marks on the table!
Not wanting to constrain this creativity, I quickly added some card to the table, oh and a bit more paint!
Well the children seemed far more interested in this!!
As well as making marks on the paper, they seemed intent on getting as much black paint on their hands as possible (black being not the best colour for hand painting when it comes to the clean up!)
The rubbed the paint over the fronts and backs of their hands and seemed to really enjoy the experience:-)
So our marble-rolled spiders webs turned into a slightly longer activity then planned, with an even longer clear up.
I realised I had no hope of getting the children from the kitchen to the bathroom without leaving evidence on the walls between the two rooms, so decided to clean them up as best I could in the kitchen! Now I had 3 very black children, who had all decided they had finished painting and would now quite like to go and play!! My tactics for the clean up ….to go for the child most likely to make a run for the lounge first!
We did end up with a few spiders webs:-)
But the creations below are the part of the activity the children really enjoyed:-)
