Ball and Car Painting

Supplies required:

Paint
Paper
Balls
Toy Cars
Boxes or buckets or something to put the paper in (optional)

I had seen the idea for this art project in a few different places, and today we decided to try it out.  I thought it was going to be very messy, so I dressed the kids in old clothes and shoes and took them outside to do it.  It didn't turn out to be very messy at all, although if my son W had been interested in the project (he was more interested in playing basketball and playing with one of the bouncy balls we used for the project) it would have probably become a huge mess.

For this project, we found a couple of shallow boxes from Amazon that I had already cut the flaps off of to make into "drawers" for our coffee shop.  We also used a couple of plastic Easter baskets.   You could use a lot of different kinds of containers, or you could do this project without any containers at all.  I put paper in the bottom of the boxes and in the bottom of the Easter baskets (I cut the Easter basket paper into circles so it would fit.) 

For the "ball" paintings, I scattered a few drops of paint on the paper (you don't need a lot) that was in the Easter basket, then had E put the ball in there.  She then shook the basket around to make the ball roll all across the paper in the paint.  It was fun and easy.  She then wanted to try to do the ball painting in the Amazon rectangular boxes, and that worked well too. 

For the "car" paintings, we used a piece of paper in the Amazon rectangular boxes. I put some paint on a paper plate and then had E roll the car in the paint to get the wheels covered.  She then "drove" the car around on the paper.  This was a lot of fun too!  You could even put the paint right on the paper like I did for the ball painting if you wanted to cut down on the mess. 

This was  lot of fun (minus the complete meltdown my son had when we initially got out the bouncy balls for this project--he wanted to play with them, but they were small enough to choke on, so I couldn't let him play with them while I was still gathering all the things I needed.)  I thought my son W would be very interested in this project, but he could have cared less.  He was just excited to be able to play with the bouncy ball once we got outside.

E doing the ball painting:

E's ball painting in the Easter basket (I probably put in a little too much paint--and if you use black paint, it obviously has a tendency to make everything gray):

My ball painting:

E's ball painting in the box:

My car painting:

E's car painting:

A Kid-Sized Waterfall

Just a few miles down the highway from us is a national recreation area where we like to hike.  Last summer my husband and I took E there with the intent of letting her play in the river that runs beside part of the trail.  However, it had recently rained and the river was too cloudy to let E play in.  So instead, we found a little creek with a small waterfall and let her play in that instead.  E has always loved playing in running water, and the creek's waterfall was the perfect size for her.  She loved finding leaves and sending them down the waterfall, and she also loved throwing rocks in the little pool at the base of the waterfall.  She had so much fun that we took her back one weekend in September when her grandmother came to visit.  This time we brought a bucket with us and some bathtub toys.

Today we went back to the same creek to let E and W play.  They loved sitting on top of the waterfall.  W spent most of his time splashing, and E filled up the bucket we brought.  We also sent some toy boats down the waterfall.  I love doing this activity with the kids because they have such a great time, and it's completely free (other than the $20 yearly parking pass for the national recreation area, which I am happy to pay).