Painting

I've gotten braver . . . or more in need of activities . . . or the boys have gotten older . . .

At any rate, we've painted twice in the past few weeks, with minimal damage to clothing or furniture. I do have one dedicated painting t-shirt, but it's so much easier just to strip them down. With the water colors, it didn't seem necessary.

First up: after reading about Josiah, I cut two rectangles out of a large paper bag. The boys crumpled them up and flattened them back up repeatedly to "age" the paper, and then covered them in brown water color to further the effect. I quickly discovered that the activity went more smoothly if I held a little bowl of water (out of Owen's reach) and only offered it for dipping paintbrushes when necessary.

Notice Silas's name has been added to the purple table.  :)  Thanks, Dad!

Before painting, I wrote "Book of the Law" on Owen's paper, and then Levi copied it onto his own. He still has trouble with the "K," so I helped with that, but otherwise it's all his own writing!

On another day, our preschool curriculum suggested painting with Q-tips for a fine motor activity. I drew a few shapes and numbers (and letters for Levi, mostly for practice writing his last name) with Sharpie and tried to get the boys to paint (in Q-tip dots) over them. That wasn't terribly well-received, except for Levi's brief interest in the letters of his first name. Ah well; it was fun anyway!

He looks sad, but I promise: he did have fun painting that square!