Blow Painting

Here is one of those easy craft activities for kids that uses the technique of blow painting to bring the world of micro-organisms to life!

At a certain age, usually around the threes to fours, I find that Little Sparks become obsessed by the notion of ‘germs’.  I guess this partly arises from their recent graduation from nappies and the urgency with which parents suddenly try to drill the notion of ‘hand washing’ into their children.  In fact, I’ve often used this activity so that Little Sparks can make ‘reminder’ posters for the bathroom door!

It occurs to me that we frequently ask Little Sparks to believe in things they cannot see – Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, Angels – to name but a few, quickly spring to mind.  Regardless of whether we actually believe such things exist there is no shortage of visual representations of them.  Now ask your Little Sparks what they think a germ looks like!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the activities of micro-organisms are more essential to life on earth than The Tooth Fairy and that we owe it to our Little Sparks to investigate this invisible world a little further.  And here at Raising Sparks we see no reason why three year olds shouldn’t be using words like ‘micro-organism’.  Under the microscope the world of micro-organisms is a beautiful and fascinating place.  From deadly viruses to friendly bacteria, the weird and wonderful shapes are utterly captivating. Before starting this craft activity why don’t you see if you can find images of germs under the microscope to use as inspiration?

For this craft activity you will need:

• Non-toxic paint heavily watered down.
• Plain paper
• Straws – piercing these with a pin near the top should help prevent Little Sparks from drinking paint!
• A medicine dropper is useful but not essential!
• Felt tips
• Googly eyes – you might like to add other collage materials such as pom-poms for a 3D effect.

What to do:

Drop small blobs of liquid paint onto your paper.  Little Sparks really enjoy using medicine droppers to do this and it certainly refines fine motor skills.  Now use the straws to blow the blobs of paint out in all directions.  Leave your blow paintings to dry.  Once dry stick on the googly eyes and draw in features using the felt-tips.  We always add a few smiley faces as well as the more menacing ones as a reminder that some bacteria are friendly!

Tagged as: craft activities for pre-schoolers, craft ideas for toddlers, easy craft ideas for kids, painting activities for kids