FINGERPAINTING

Please like and share!

When I was a younger, inexperienced, first-time mom, the thought of messy activities with my baby petrified me.  Like many first-time moms(before the days of social media and readily available internet), I scoured parenting and baby magazines.  My favorite was Family Fun. I have no idea which year or which exact magazine it was, but I read an article on the benefits of fingerpainting with your infant.  

The article lingered in my mind for days and I found myself re-reading the article more times than I can count.  

Sometime that next week, I found myself at a local department store to buy diapers.  My daughter was asleep in her car seat when I took her into the store. While inside, she woke up.  The one thing that always made her happy while in her car seat was looking at lights. So I took a few laps around the store while she babbled, talking to the lights as she always did.  Eventually, I wound up over in the school supply section and there I saw it–FINGERPAINT!!! I just had to buy it. This began a new chapter in my life.

We got home and I covered the table with a disposable tablecloth, set a bowl of warm water with a washcloth in it on the table(a trick I’d learned when I taught preschool), stripped her down to her diaper, got out the paper and the finger paint and let her at it.  At first, she wasn’t so sure about it. Then she just stared at her fingers and hand. Then she thought maybe she’d taste it, thankfully, I was young and had quick reflexes. Finally, with me showing her how and what to do, she began smearing the paint around the paper.  I was so excited that it began to excite her too and soon she was squealing as she smacked at the paper. The session didn’t last that long but made an impression on my heart that will never go away. I put her hands in the water to wash her off good and then gave her a bath.  That evening, when she napped, I cleaned up the mess, which wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated, and hung up her picture on the wall. Her first masterpiece. It didn’t take long for me to fill my walls(and my loving family members and our friends and anyone else I happened to meet) with her artwork.  Thus began a more than decades-long tradition of having children’s artwork adorning every wall in my house.

Fingerpainting, as well as most other art activities, has so many benefits for young children.

Fingerpainting allows children to experience different textures, as it stimulates their senses.   

Fingerpainting also helps to improve their eye-hand coordination which is so beneficial during the early years.

Fingerpainting can also stimulate a child’s brain which will help them in many areas of their lives.

For me, art time became a bonding experience with my daughter, and then subsequently with my sons and the other little ones that I’ve cared for through the years.  So many times when I see meltdowns coming or a child is just outright ornery, I bring out some art supplies and we “create” something together. Art can be so soothing and such a creative release for a child that it can easily calm them and help them to handle their emotions better.  For some reason, art also released my children so that nap time would not be a struggle. The brain activity that is used during art time allowed my children to calm down and we could then have some snuggle time(with books of course), which often give us an enjoyable afternoon that contradicted the ornery stressful morning we’d had.

Sometimes I cut out seasonal shapes and let the children each pick a color or two to paint with.  This would also, as they got older, allow them to experiment with mixing different colors together.

Sometimes I set out lots of colors and gave them regular sheets of paper and just let them go crazy.

As often as possible, I’d let the children make some of the choices when it came to painting art projects.  Would they like to use their fingers or a brush or other implement? What color paper would they like? What color paint?  What shape should I cut out for you?

I always play music in the background; seasonal, classical, hymns, traditional children’s songs, whatever the mood called for.

Sometimes we sing while we paint and sometimes we just listen to the music.

There have even been times when we’ve listened to short audiobooks as we’ve painted.  

Some days seems each child wants to paint for as long as possible and complete as many pictures as they can.

Sometimes they only want to complete one.

There have even been days where certain children just want to sit and observe and smile as they watch the others paint.

One of my favorite things about fingerpainting and art, in general, is the fact that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to do it.  Whatever fits the day, the mood, the children.

For me, art is more about bonding than the actual process.
Check out my previous blog post for some other “messy” ideas for children:
https://learningisawayoflife.com/getting-messy-with-little-ones/

The next time you’re at a department store, I challenge you to grab some new painting item–sponges, fingerpaints, new brushes, fun paper or some other item that can provide you and your child with a stimulating new art activity to delve into.