Learning through Painting

Here is another cheap kids craft for you...

I wanted something that we could learn about shapes, numbers, colors, and/or letters. For less than $4.00 I created some stamps for Thing 1 to use with paint. The great thing about this activity, is that it can be adapted for many age groups and learning concepts.

I bought some cheap kitchen sponges at Target. They were $1.77 for a set of four. I probably could have found them cheaper at a dollar store, but I was in a hurry, and $1.77 is pretty cheap, so I went with it! I decided to get two packs.

I wanted this activity to focus on teaching shapes. Since I really wanted the star to look like a star, I found some toys that he already owned that I could use as a stencil.

Then I placed the toys on the sponge. I put them close together so that I could get the most out of each sponge. Yeah...I'm cheap like that. I traced them with a marker, and then cut them out.

We had a few sponges left over, so I was able to make the numbers 1-5 as well. I traced these from a puzzle and cut them out.

Let the fun begin!!! I used acrylic paint from Michael's. It some that I already had, and it's non-toxic. He had never painted before, so it took him a few minutes to figure things out!

This activity quickly went from stamping to finger painting to a toddler than looks a little too much like Poppa Smurf!

It was messy! But well worth it!