Down Up Painting

Dillon and I take a mommy and me class through the community college district that we both love. Each week there is stories, learning of letters, singing, free play - inside and outside and arts and crafts. I have always been a pretty crafty person and I love making things. Dillon, however, does not share that passion. I have to practically force him to do his craft... there is usually two or three each week and I always have him try at least one (and usually it's only half painted or in the case of the Thanksgiving hand print turkeys - all one color). He has found two crafts that he actually likes; the first involves painting with marbles and the second one is painting with shapes. His teacher calls it shape painting but Dillon calls it down up painting. Basically, you take a shape (like Lego's or the shapes that you sort into boxes) dip it into paint and stamp it on your paper. The reason that he calls it down up painting is because the teacher explains to the kiddos that you can go down up with the shape several times before reapplying the paint. Dillon loves this one so much that he actually asked to do down up painting at home.

He has plenty of shape sorting blocks and I had some washable finger paints so, I figured, Why not? So, I squirt some of the paint into the little baby cereal bowls and thinned them down with a tiny bit of water (the paint we have is very gel like), grabbed his blocks, taped some paper to the kitchen table, stripped him down to his diaper and set him to work. And the kid painted, and painted and painted... for an HOUR! He filled up three huge pieces of paper all while saying out loud "Down up down up down up." And when he was done, I hung his art up to dry, wiped down the kitchen table with a wet paper towel and I popped him into the bath and the mess was all cleaned up. Love it.