CAR
P A I N T I N G
For Babies
If you’ve visited Big Kid Little Kid before then you probably stumbled onto some of my nerdtacular dad-craft which gave Little E, my pre-schooler, hours of fun and, hopefully, a smidge of learning. But in the past months, since the birth of my rockin’ baby son Little L, the dad-craft has been on hiatus. So autumn is the perfect season to get the little fella outside, avoiding the summer scorchers, and give him his first taste of some dad-tastic crafty fun. Little L’s lack of motor skills had me stumped whilst trying to work out what craftiness to get him to do and then I googled onto a cool idea - painting with balls in a box. But this concept needed to be Dadded-Up!
You’ll need: • paper • scissors • sticky tape • preferably non-toxic paint in a few colours • container with a lockable lid • toy cars
THIS IS VERY EASY AND LOTS OF FUN FOR YOUR MINI-PERSON WITHOUT REQUIRING THEM TO HAVE ANY COORDINATION WHATSOEVER!
What to do: 1. Ensure that the container you choose has a lockable lid, otherwise this activity will get out of hand and very messy! 2. Cut a piece of paper to the size of your container and sticky tape it to the inside bottom. 3. Squeeze some dollops of paint onto the paper. Choose some bright colours that will make interesting blends. I’m using water-based acrylic paints, as I already plan to hang the resulting masterpiece, but
it may be safer to use non-toxic paints if you have chosen a food container for this craft. 4. Add the toy cars to the container and lock the lid in place. 5. Hand the box over to your baby and watch them knock, kick, wobble, wave and bam-bam the art into it! 6. Take out the paper and BOOM! Instant artwork.