Last week we tried rolling pin painting, well actually it was cardboard tube painting. The tubes we later used to make telescopes to accompany the story Shark in the Park. I got this idea from over at Casa Maria’s Creative Learning Zone. I thought her activity was slightly advanced for my little ones so adapted it a bit.
The idea was for the children to add paint to the paper and then roll the cardboard tubes through to mix the colours. I decided to do this activity mainly because I have a little one who is fascinated with things that go round.
Rolling can create some pretty effects, but with two under 2’s having a go, I wasn’t sure what we were going to end up with!
I gave the children paint just in 4 colours. We are working on colour recognition so I wanted them to have the opportunity to match colour within the activity. Keeping to just 4 colours would make this easier. I used the smaller pots inside the large dishes as, A: I’d need a lot of paint for them to scoop if I just used the dishes and B: I didn’t want it to be a hand-painting activity (well not straight away anyway!)
Each child was given a large sheet of card and a cardboard tube. These were quite sturdy tubes.
The children then selected a colour, used the spoons to transfer it to the paper and then rolled their tubes through.
They were then free to add more paint and roll.
Sometimes they rolled, sometimes they sort of pushed the tubes through!
Sometimes they also spun the tubes round in circles, hence the circular marks in the paint.
I resisted the temptation to whip the paintings away, when I perceived that they looked pretty and allowed the children to carry on exploring. Consequently their paintings at the end were mostly that pre-school brown colour, but they did look pretty along the way!
The children also discovered they could make circular prints by turning the tubes on their end…..
….and they also experimented with adding paint to the tubes rather than the paper.
