Spin Art Leaves

Sweet Pea was 4 years old.

From: Lid spin-art has been all over the blogosphere lately (putti prapancha, Let Kid’s Create and Teach Preschool) so when I saw these No Mess Leaves (from Moments of Mommyhood), I immediately wanted to put my own “spin” on them. 🙂

Material:

• Several colors of kid’s craft paint.  (We stuck to Fall leaf colors like orange, brown and red.)
• Paper.
• Plastic Lid.
• Leaf outlines. (This is a .pdf file and requirse Foxit or Adobe Acrobat to view it.)

• Scissors. (Maped Koopy Spring Scissors are my favorite type of scissors for tots.)
• Double-sided tape. (Or make loops out of regular tape.)

Procedure:

• Roughly cut out each of the leaves from my leaf outline worksheet and set aside for later.

• Draw a circular outline around the lid on a piece of paper.

• Show your tot how to drizzle a small amount of  paint (about 1/2 tsp per color) inside the circle and then press the lid gently on top of the paint.

• Demonstrate using  your hand to twist the lid until all of the white space has been covered with paint.
• Lift the lid to see your spin art.

• Let your tot create several pieces of spin art and then allow them to dry overnight.
• Cut out each of the spin art circles or allow your tot to cut them out.

• Tape one of the leaf outlines to the back of a spin art circle in 3 or 4 spots so it is securely fastened.  In the picture below the painted spin art side of the paper is facing down, while the leaf outline is up.

• Depending on your tot’s skill level, either cut out the leaf yourself or allow your tot to do it.

• Being careful not to tear your leaf, remove the tape and leaf outline from the back.
•  Repeat with the rest of your  leaves and enjoy!

 Observations:

Holy Moley!  Are these cool or what?   I was excited as soon as I saw our spin art because I could see it was going to make very realistic looking leaves.  See how the different colors of  paint ran into lines as the lid was pulled away from the paper?  This technique created awesome faux “veins” in the leaves.

Both Sweet Pea and I were very entertained by the spin-art.  We went through the entire stack of paper (15 sheets?) that I had set aside for this activity.  Every single time, Sweet Pea was excited to pull up the lid and see what the paint looked like underneath.

This was so much fun, even if you only do the spin-art portion and never get around to cutting out the leaves.  I think this activity would work for a wide range of ages and I highly recommend it.

Notes from the Trenches:  We also tried painting directly on the lid instead of drizzling the paint on the paper, but it didn’t work as well.  Sweet Pea just couldn’t get enough paint on the lid so it didn’t transfer to the paper.

Detailed leaves can be difficult for a tot to cut out.  Let younger tots cut the easier leaves (dogwoods and maples) and save the oak leaves for yourself.

Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Frugal)

Carnivals: Linked up to It’s Playtime @ hands on : as we grow.