We had a great time painting on paperbark, but once the bark was used up the activity was over. Of course the next day my three year old said, “Let’s do some more bark art Mummy!” I had to be a little more resourceful, but we came up with a great activity.
Firstly we collected whatever bark we could find in our yard. It wasn’t paperbark, but it was bark and I figured we could work with that! I helped my daughter to collect interesting little things from around the yard and she spent a good twenty minutes collecting in a bucket. Then all I did was squirt a heap of cheap craft glue onto the bark, and let her stick flowers, leaves, seedpods and gumnuts onto the bark! On one piece of bark she grouped similar items together, and on the other she carefully arranged them in a way that pleased her.
We wasted a lovely afternoon with this outdoor craft. But if she asks for more bark art tomorrow, I’m all out of ideas!
Maybe you could paint the bottom of a tree to look like a totem.
Hey I just saw a great idea yesterday at the local prep school open day. They had small buckets of water with a paint brush (fairly big one) tied onto it. It is for spelling activities etc but Riley loved painting on the concrete with the water and wearing the water. Maybe R might like to do that while L paints with the real paint.
So much fun you have together
I love it when you follow a child’s interest – the posibilites are limitless!
LOL Nicole. You never know… we just might try painting trees in the yard!