Painting with toddlers can be stressful but if you follow a few simple tips it can be a fun and calm experience.
Even better is to make it educational too. Painting is a great time to introduce colours and shapes to your toddler. If they are having fun it will make the learning easier and more likely to be retained.
This is a really simple way to introduce and reinforce the learning of shapes and colours while having a bit of messy play.
1. Get paints ready. I chose four basic colours – red, green, yellow and blue.
2. Do a template that your toddler can copy. In my case I painted a RED HEART, GREEN TRIANGLE, YELLOW CIRCLE and BLUE SQUARE but do as many of as few as you like.
My template
3. Get toddler ready!
4. GO! I helped my little girl with the edges of the shapes – reinforcing some basics about the shape for example as I guided her hand to do the three lines of the triangle I told her “A triangle has three sides – 1, 2, 3”. Once I helped her draw the shape I left her at it to fill it in with the colour paint. Asking as she went “What colour are your painting the triangle?”
I think judging by the look on her face she had a blast! While she knows the shapes and colours well it was a fun way to reinforce it for her. Next time I will make it harder with new shapes and new colours!
