MAMA Children’s Activity: Snow painting and printing!

So the snow arrived with us yesterday and I thought how can I make this work with our MAMA afternoons. So I decided to combine the snow and my son’s love for squeezing paint to see what creations we could make and the results were beautiful (and messy of course!)

Equipment

Plastic activity mat.
Old towel.
Painting clothes/aprons.
Paint – lots of colours (water based, non-toxic).
Bowls/trays/tins filled with snow!
Paint brushes/sponges/rollers (any mark-making tools).
Card/paper.
Mini canvases.
Snow themed toys to play with in snow.
Wipes.

Step 1: Preparation.

I did this activity on the floor as it’s easier to do the paint squeezing part whilst your child is standing. I used an activity mat and towel to make a larger space. I set up the paints/mark-making tools/card and mini canvases first. Then just before bringing my son in I set up the snow filled containers with the wintery themed toys in.

Step 2: Squeezing and mixing!

I let my son explore the snow first. I then asked him to choose which colours he wanted to squeeze onto it. He inevitably chose his favourite colour first – red! In between squeezing paint onto the snow we used the mark-making tools to mix in the paint and make patterns.

Step 3: Printing pictures.

We experimented with pushing card/paper and the mini canvases onto the painted snow then lifting it up to see what patterns we had made. It was really lovely to see my son’s joy at the lovely colours and patterns. The mini canvases looked really lovely and worked the best (we picked them up from a charity shop but they are available in lots of craft shops too!)

Step 4: Melting snow!

As we kept adding paint and mixing things up the snow eventually melted which my son found fascinating (so our MAMA session also became a mini science lesson). He then used the rollers and brushes to do some painting on the left over card.

Step 5: Tidy tidy tidy up!

We put our snow paintings aside to dry, wiped up the main mess, put our mark-making tools into soak and then went and had a bath! I properly cleaned up later when my son was tucked up in bed.

So now you have some lovely snow paintings to display and keep. Don’t forget to write your child’s name and the date on them!

Please share any of your MAMA creations on Facebook (create and share group), Instagram or Twitter we’d love to see them! http://www.megaawesomemessyart.com