Painting with Water – Young Child Activity

Written on January 8, 2023

by Jordan Engdahl

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We’re always looking for more ways to keep this child busy. I’m a Stay at Home Mom and we’re currently a one vehicle household. My husband was in a car accident a few months ago and totaled his, which means he has been using my car to get work. As a fireman, he works a specific schedule that makes shifts fall on different days each week. In addition to that, they are 24 hours at a time, if he doesn’t pick up overtime on top of it. This makes it difficult for me to get our child up early to bring him to work and do it again the next morning to bring him home. So, if we don’t have anywhere specific to go on a day he has to work, he’ll take the car – leaving us home without anywhere to go. 

It’s easy to just turn the television on to keep the kids entertained while we get household chores done, or if we just need a minute to ourselves. But, at the same time, I don’t want our child to become accustomed to that, nor do I think it’s helping her mind think and learn, or her body stay active.

We’ve signed her up for things like swim lessons, tumbling, brought her to local indoor play scapes, and go to the park or splash pad when it’s nice outside. But, those activities aren’t always available for us to do, nor do they take up the whole day. So, I have to come up with other indoor learning enrichments that will keep her mind and body active. 

The worst days are when we don’t have a car, and the weather is so gross that we don’t want to go outside.

I know how difficult it can be to get the motivation to even come up with something to do, let alone doing it. I struggle every day having a lazy mind take over my mind and body. I do these posts specifically to help other parents and make it easier for them. I’m not looking for anything over complicated to add to my daily to do list, but I also feel that if I’m staying home from work to be with my children, I need to give them a life that they deserve. That’s my motivation to work hard for my current, only child, but also any future children. Check out my post on this topic specifically to dig deeper into getting inspiration and motive to keep our days going. 

Back to the fun talk! 

I went to school for early childhood education, and, of course, I LOVE DIY crafts and projects. Therefore, I have many different craft materials floating around the house. Although, I do try to find and come up activities that allow me to use items that I already have, rather than going out and buying specific materials for just one day.

Side note: All of my posts about activities are not a One and Done project. You obviously aren’t going to want to do the same thing every day for a week, but you can always circle back to it. Children can get tired or bored of things very quickly, which makes it that much more difficult to keep them busy and yourself from becoming exhausted trying to entertain them. So, pick a good 10-20 different activities and just rotate through them. Once you or your child gets tired of those, pick 10-20 new activities. I would recommend not adding too many tasks into a young child’s day. Spread them out and maybe chose 2-3 things per day. They will be busy doing other things like eating, playing with their toys, sleeping, going outside, etc. Try not to overstimulate their cute little minds and bodies. And do it all on their time!

It’s also a great idea to chose the activity based on their developmental stage. I don’t like to add ages to my posts, just a general “young child” range, for example, mostly because all children are at different stages during different times. There is a typical age developmental area for stages, but I’m not going to tell you that my 1 year old child can do one thing, while your one year old may not yet be there, or is further along developmentally. So, when reading my activity idea posts, take into consideration where your child is at in their development. You can always make an alternation to an activity to make it work for your child based on their needs. 

The following activities may be able to whip up with materials in your own home.

• Cotton Swab Painting

• Cotton Ball Painting

• Transferring Balls with a spoon into a cupcake tray (Check out my post on this!)

• Stringing Cheerios/Froot Loops/noodles (Check out my post on this!)

A good thing to know though, is that as long as you have paper and paint, you can use ANYTHING as a paintbrush. 

• Food (celery, apples, etc) 

• dry pasta, wet spaghetti noodles

• sponges

• toys (cars or legos for example)

• toilet paper rolls

• kitchen utensils

• bubble wrap

• plastic cup rims or lids

OR Bring the materials outside!

• make the driveway or brick wall the canvas

… the list is endless.

Find out how we got away with a bath free day after today’s paint activity!

“Water” Paint!

And really, I mean just plain ole water

Materials

• Paper (construction paper is best, as it is thicker and will not rip as easily)

• Paint brush or sponge

• Small cup of water

For this activity, a paint brush type of tool is best to use as it shows the water marks immediately on the paper. Other household “brushes” as I had mentioned before, like pasta, kitchen utensils, or food, are better to use when you want to see the colored paint make markings or shapes on the paper. BUT! Regardless of which tool you decide to use, it will still be a majorly fun activity for young children to do, all while not getting as messy. The only cleanup might be a towel! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Speaking of water. You don’t need a lot, at all. Our child is only 17 months the first time I am trying this out with her, so she most definitely tried to pick up the bowl of water and, I’m assuming would’ve flailed it around, but I used one of those suction bowls and put enough water that just my fingertip would have been submerged. They don’t need a lot, and if they do need more, there’s plenty more to refill.

I also would recommend using a new paint brush if possible. Rilynn, our young toddler, still puts things in her mouth from time to time, and these brushes definitely made there way in! I had previously used these brushes for paint projects. I obviously didn’t let her sit there and suck on them, but I most definitely know she probably got (an unharmful amount – meaning little to none – so don’t come at me!) a taste of old paint in her mouth. Yuck!

A QUICK and EASY clean up activity, that will keep them busy (hopefully, for longer than 20 seconds. Ha Ha! Speaking from other experience …)!

Read further for the educational development of this activity and how to engage with your child during it. 

Developmental Aspects:

• Your child will be using their fine motor skills by using their fingers to pick up the paint brush tool, and their wrists/hands to maneuver the tools by dipping in water and brushing and dabbing it along the paper.

• Develop creativity and imagination.

• Visual and Creative Expression helps the child to use words and pictures to express themselves and convey meaning.

• Eye-Hand Coordination: the child will use their eyes to understand what they see to signal their hands to conduct a motion.

• This can also act as a relaxation activity for children.

TIP: Give your child options

• Let them choose between no more than two colors of construction paper.

• Let them chose which paint brush tool they’d like to use. 

How to engage in language with your child during this activity:

• Talk about what you are observing.

• Is that sponge squishy? Is it cold and wet? Is it smooth?

• You are making lots of lines, circles, dots, etc. 

• What are you painting a picture of?

• Are you using water to paint? 

• Use it as a learning experience: We usually drink water, but right now, we are using it to paint a picture!

She told me “No!” No more pictures. So, goodbye for now!

Happy “clean” craft activity day! Let me know how it went for you!