Before you gather all your tools to make the perfect turkey , grab your bulb baster and some paint! This was a ton of fun, and a huge mess. A tip for after you are done, pop your child and the turkey baster into the bath that way you wont have the tedious task of cleaning the paint out of it before using it next week. All the paint will come out in the bath and you can pop it in the dishwasher after that!
- Gather your materials. You will need paint, a little water, something to hold it , a dish towel, paper, a piece of construction paper and of course a turkey baster.
- Thin the paint a little with water, just a tiny bit though if it’s too thin it will splatter everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Test it out before handing it to your child.
- Dip the baster in and start.
I showed my son how to do it once and off he went, he alternated between actually using it as a baster and just dipping the tip in and onto his paper.
- Try a second or third color! I only made 3 colors because it uses a fair amount of paint up, but there is no reason to not use more if you want. Keep going !My son made 5 pictures- although by the end his fingers were used a bit more than the baster.
- Let dry and tape to a piece of construction paper for the complete masterpiece look!
Books!
“I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!”by Karen Beaumont is guaranteed to entertain your child, even my toddler was laughing and anticipating the rhyming text which tickled me to no end! Now I have had some parents in the past not be happy about the use of “ain’t ” and the little boy in the story painting everywhere, I would counter that by saying people do use “ain’t” and kids do paint on things they aren’t supposed to you can use this as an example of what you aren’t supposed to do, and ask your child what they think should happen if they painted all over the house? As far as using “Ain’t” I would play the traditional “It ain’t gonna rain no more” and explain that the author used that song as inspiration for the book.
“Willow” by Denise Brennan Nelson is another wonderful book about artistic spirit. Willow doesn’t follow the rules in art class, instead she paints what she sees when she closes her eyes. Her teacher’s rules are unfair, restrictive and she is just plain mean! It’s hard as a teacher to read stories with mean , repressive teachers in them, and this one takes the cake. Willow doesn’t stop painting blue apples and is confident in her individuality and isn’t as bothered by her mean teacher as I am. This story is really worth a look!
Oh wow. I’m sure it’s fun and I’m CERTAIN that you should win a Super Mom award for this one.
I would have paint dripping from the ceiling, all over the furniture, running down the walls… there’s just no way I would be able to convince EcoKid to keep her baster pointed down.
Good thing we’re vegetarian and as such, don’t own a baster. I don’t have to come up with an excuse for not doing this one…
But in theory, I love it!
Great artwork!
We did something similar with a medicine dropper and watercolors – only we painted on newspaper (spread all over the floor) to minimize the mess. What fun!
i’ve just order a baster on ebay to be able to do this and the colour mixing with the water you described on here! fun times ahead!! thanks!
I’m not sure I can grit my teeth and manage this one. Maybe we can do it outside.
I love your projects and that you include books so often that go along with. It makes it so nice when I’m at the library trying to choose books while keeping an eye on a small boy who can’t share and is never where I left him. I see one that looks familiar from your site and just snag it!
Can I just save a step and actually DO this projec IN the bathtub? 🙂
what a fun idea! I totally was singing “it ain’t gonna rain no more…” when I saw the title of the book 🙂
Oh how fun! And I love his expression of concentration.
Yes it was messy- not as messy as what we did today, but you have to wait to see that!
Eye droppers or doing it in the bath would both be great adaptations though.
CC- I was singing it too !
Eye droppers are wonderful! They are used in preschools (and lower elementary grades) to help develop and strengthen fine motor and pincer grasp. Love the projects we have made with them… as far as the turkey baster…Allie, you are one brave chick!
my son and i just did this activity and it rocked!! he LOVED it!! the only thing id say is for some reason sometimes there was far too much paint coming out at once.. was my paint too thin maybe?? then we did some of the colour mixing activity you described a while ago which he adored!! it turned into pouring vast amounts of coloured water from one jug to the other but its all good!! thanks so much!! off to clean up!!
I’m so happy he had fun! Yeah , my baster was being funny the other day too ,it was fine the day I did that activity though. I think maybe if too much air it taken in with it a LOT comes out.
What great fun!! With my boys may be an outside project though. LOL Great idea about the bath though.
these could be turned into place mats too