Body painting with toddlers! On one very chilly February morning the educators brought out our mural paper and placed it on the floor with a variety of colours of paint and place the paint in a few trays and the rest directly on the mural paper with some different tools to paint with. Then the toddlers were asked if they wanted to paint with their clothes on or just in their diapers. As most of our toddlers agreed that they wanted to paint without their clothes, the educators assisted the toddlers remove their clothing, with just their diapers on. This gave them the opportunity to get creative with and paint all over their entire bodies! Our toddlers are very wiggly little creatures especially with slippery paint beneath their feet. But they were not afraid to explore and move their feet cautiously overtop of the colours of paint. Some of the younger toddlers found that it was harder to balance their bodies, so they preferred to sit and observe their peers walk around. While other friends with the assistance of the educators, walked hand in hand, balancing and coordinating their movement’s as they explored. This creative experience gave them the chance to refine those fine and gross motor skills. We feel that being able to move around on their canvas and interact with their hands and feet is key to their experience of art at this age. When they were on the floor they would paint in big sweepings motions with their hands, arms, or very refined delicate strokes with their little fingertips. Some of the toddlers even enjoyed using their bodies as a canvas, by painting parts of their bodies, like their tummies, arms and legs. They seemed to enjoy the feeling of the cool, squishy and smooth feeling of paint on their hands as they broadened their painting by placing paint on different parts of their bodies too. They even experimented with different body positions by stretching or squishing their whole bodies and even walked around on the paper leaving behind their footprints. Painting is a multi sensory experience. It’s not only about the feel of the paint on your hands when finger painting. Often, we think of sensory as just tactile touch, what we feel with our hands. But it is so much more than that. A huge component of sensory development is understanding where our body is in space and how it relates to or can influence the environment around us. What our toddlers learned from body painting: It helps to build their patience and concentration, helps develop their expression of emotions, explores colours, explore process and outcomes and sense of belongin.
