Rainbow Q-Tip Painting

My day care kiddos love painting and doing projects.  As soon as they walk in the door they are asking what project they get to do.  It makes my heart melt.  I love when kids excited about creating.  Today I set up a simple painting activity.  Instead of using paint brushes, I set out Q-Tips (cotton buds) for the kids to paint with.  They loved this simple Rainbow Q-Tip Painting project.

Materials:

• Liquid Water Colors or watered down liquid food coloring
• Q-Tips (Cotton Buds)
• White Paper

.The kids loved dipping their Q-Tips in the liquid watercolor and sliding it across the paper.  I added a Q-Tip to each of the colors to simple help keep the colors bright, and encouraged the kids to d their mixing on the paper.

I love this little elbow propped on their paper in pure concentration:)

Switching up what you offer your kids to paint with is a great way to keep things fun and exciting.  If you are looking for more interesting ways to paint with your kids you won’t want to miss my Painting without Brushes Pinterest board.

I also encouraged the kids to make puddles of water colors on their paper.  They loved watching the colors pool and mix into new colors.  While their painting was still wet, the kids sprinkled it with salt.  Salt reacts with the watercolor as it dries and creates a beautiful texture.  Make sure to let your painting completely dry before brushing off the salt.

We love painting with Q-tips, check out these other fun Q-tip projects:

• Bleach and Sharpie Valentines
• Recycled Christmas Tree

If you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having at Housing A Forest, make sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, Google + and Twitter.  Hope to see you there:)