Rose and I are stuck at home for the better part of today
while waiting for a contractor to come and patch up a hole in the garage ceiling.
Luckily, we were able to run to the late story time at our library where Rose
had an awesome social breakthrough and detached herself from me for a whole 5
minutes to play with the parachute. It was a big proud-mama moment.
After we came home and ate lunch, we were pretty bored and
didn’t know what to do with ourselves. I thought about finger painting but I
really didn’t feel like cleaning up the big mess that was sure to come with
that activity, which of course would lead to a bath. That’s when it hit me. Why
not skip the middle part? Why not make the mess IN the bathtub? Well, that’s
exactly what we did. I prepped Rose’s paint tray (icecube tray), attached
cotton balls to the ends of some clothespins, and let Rose go at it in the tub.
I made sure to use washable finger paint. I recommend the Crayola
brand, but you could always experiment making some DIY finger paint (although
be careful when using food coloring, it may dye your child’s clothes and/or
your bathtub).
My favorite things about this activity is that the prep time
was minimal (around 2 minutes) and Rose enjoyed playing for about 30-35 minutes!
After about 15 minutes of play Rose started getting bored with the cotton
balls, so I introduced some q-tips and she continued playing with those for
another 10 minutes. Once she decided that she had enough of painting, I turned the
water on and she had even more fun playing in the colored water and helping mom
clean the sides of the tub. The one “bad” thing about this activity is that it
left a lovely red ring around my tub; but since I used washable paints, it was
easily removed with a wet rag.
Overall Rating: 5+ Stars!
Below is a quick summary of why this activity was so awesome
and received a 5+ rating:
- Minimal prep time
- 30-35 minutes of play time
- Sensory play: cotton, water, goopy paint
- Learning opportunities for colors, counting, and letters
- Creative play: making art, mixing colors
- Easy clean up
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