I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Open ended art is a must for children, especially young children who care more about the process rather than the outcome. As I was straightening our preschool storage room, I found a box of paint/dough scrapers that was hidden behind larger boxes. I happened to be planning the rainbow theme and realized these scrapers could be a great tool to pull the colors across a piece of paper. What I didn’t anticipate was how popular this activity would be with my two and three year olds. Many of the children made multiple rainbow paintings!
I like to do this activity on trays. Place a sheet of paper on top of each tray along with a scraper and have the bottles of paint close by.
In fact, it might take them awhile to get the hang of it, but give them that time. Create a vertical row of paint (one dollop of each color) on the left side of the paper. Show them how to place their scraper to the left of the paint and drag it towards the right. This is an excellent way to strengthen pre-reading and pre-writing fine motor skills by learning to move from left to right, starting at the top and moving down. While scraping the colors across the paper, new colors will appear where the paints overlapped.
I didn’t correct this as I wanted them to enjoy the experience of moving the paint around, blending the colors.
Rainbow Books
Happy Rainbow The Rainbow Snail Peacock’s Rainbow Feathers A Rainbow of My Own Planting a Rainbow Hello, Rainbow
Rainbow Activities We let ours dry thoroughly and then I hung them on the classroom wall. What I love about process art is that no two look alike!
Colorful Rainbow Art Rainbow Collage Art Rainbow Sensory Bin Rainbows and Light Rainbow Fruit Salad
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