Preschool Apple Painting Activity Using A Salad Spinner

There’s something about squeezing paint onto paper, putting on the lid, and making the spinner move quickly. You can use this technique any time of the year, just changing the shape of the paper. Here are some favorites: Spin Art Spiders Rainbow Spin Art Easter Egg Spin Art Once children are shown how to work the salad spinner, they won’t want to stop. It’s that fun! We like to kick off fall with the apple theme.

Since we love spin-art so much, I created a simple outline that could easily be downloaded and printed, fitting nicely inside most salad spinners. I then added more ideas to our week, including: Apple Trees Puffy Print Apple Prints Rice and Apples Sensory Bin Apple Props for Circle Time Apple Muffins Apple Sorting

Salad Spinner (The OXO brand is our favorite due to the clear sides and lid, plus it’s the sturdiest of all the brands we’ve used.) Red Tempera Paint Green Tempera Paint Yellow Tempera Paint Free Apple Printable (Scroll down towards bottom of this page for link to download.)

Make sure you have enough apples for each of the children, and extras. If yours are like mine, they will want to make more than one! After cutting out the apples, gather all the supplies and place them on a table.

Instructions

Place a paper apple inside the salad spinner. Squeeze paint on top of the apple. Place lid on top and make the spinner move!

Some have levers, some have dials, some have big buttons to push. The latter is what our children have loved the most, as you can see above. Plus, this brand has a small button that acts as a brake, stopping the motion. This alone is a huge hit with the children! At first your children might move the spinner slowly, but after awhile they will get the hang of it, realizing that the faster they move the mechanism, the faster the motion.

Lots of color mixing taking place!

Finishing the Activity

When the activity is completed and the salad spinner comes to a halt, the lid can be removed. The results will vary depending on how much paint was used and the speed of the spinner, but the children always love seeing what they’ve produced once the lid is gone. What’s nice about this activity is that once the children see how it works, they can do most of the activity with little assistance.

We kept a tray next to the activity so that as the children removed their freshly painted apples, they could set them on it.

Our own apple tree! The children held these apple props, too. We use my apple tree props from our Song & Rhymes Props Pack. We also read some favorite apple books throughout the week.

5 Little Apples How Do Apples Grow? Apple Farmer Annie Peppa Goes Apple Picking Apples and Pumpkins

Click below for the free apple outline:

Have fun making your own spin art apple craft!