Inside: This shamrock painting for St. Patrick’s Day is simple enough for toddlers, but preschoolers love it, too. It’s also a great color mixing activity, learning what happens when blue and yellow are mixed! Speaking of toddlers, they especially love this activity because of the action involved. It goes right along with their energy levels! There’s very little set up involved (which busy teachers appreciate) and even busy toddlers (like mine) will stop and give it a try. After mixing the paint colors, prints can be made on a shamrock printable (provided towards the bottom of this page). A fun addition to your St. Patrick’s Day theme! Some examples: Mixing Green in a Baggie Driving Cars to Make Green Color-Mixing Shamrocks This year I decided to continue our blue and yellow color mixing using mirrors! Let me show you how easy it was. *Note About the Cotton Swabs: I happened to have a variety pack of cotton swabs and I pulled the jumbo size out for this activity. I love using cotton swabs in place of paintbrushes, but if you don’t have these (and I realize most don’t), you can use regular size cotton swabs or paintbrushes. You can trim the shamrocks if desired. In previous years I have trimmed them, but this year I decided not to. Your choice! If using foil, cut enough pieces (approximately the size of a regular sheet of paper, or you can even go larger) for each child. Place a cotton swab at each spot. Squeeze some yellow and some blue paint on top of the mirrors or foil. Have shamrock printables close by. Even my toddlers started noticing a new color – green – emerge as they mixed the paints around on the mirror. What I also love about this activity is that children can either spend a short amount of time or much longer. I had some children at the art table for a good 20 minutes, and that is a long time for a two year old! Don’t be surprised if the hands get involved. The temptation to touch the paint on the slick mirror is strong! It’s nothing soap and water can’t wash off. And the colors still got mixed … by hand! Then, have them pick up the paper! Tell the child that they are going to press their shamrock paper face down on top of the paint that they just mixed. Then, have them pat the paper as it sits on top of the paint. My two year olds didn’t get into this near as much as the three and four year olds did. Those older preschoolers really patted and rubbed! For younger children who are a bit hesitant, you can encourage them by saying “pat, pat, pat the paper!”. Or, leave it as is like I did. Hello, Rainbow Pop-Up Peekaboo! Unicorn The Itsy Bitsy Leprechaun Lucky Little Leprechaun Little Owl’s Colors Here is my Privacy Policy
