Tuesday, February 14, 2012

No-Mess Painting with Feathers

Most of my students love painting with things that aren't paintbrushes. Lettuce. Pipecleaners. Ribbons. Oddly-shaped pieces of cardboard. You get the idea. The only problem with painting with flexible objects is the mess involved. My kids invariably end up with a squished piece of something that's too difficult to maneuver, and paint all over their hands. Some of the kids love it but some of them also hate it. Lets face it; not every child loves getting messy. When a 'I'm-not-touching-that' sort of child sees the other kids getting paint up to their elbows, they opt out of the activity and miss out on some great learning experiences.

Seeing as we recently did a unit on animals, I thought it might be neat to paint with feathers. After a quick rummage through our craft cupboard, I found a great way to limit the mess - clip a clothes pin to the base of it.


 I did my trial run with two children who dislike dirty hands and it worked!


They had a great time making tiger stripes with the feathers and didn't get much paint on themselves at all.


It has now made me think of all the other objects we could clip between a peg and use to paint; ribbons, yarn, pom-poms, scraps of felt or fabric.


I'll give it a go and let you know if it works...

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