While art play time doesn’t necessarily mean doing a craft or project, the kids made some candy canes using Christmas art patterns, paper and paint dabbers.
These were fun and simple to make. Patterns, that is a repetitive sequence like red-green/red-green is something I’ve included in blogs almost every month. Little Sister has made patterns with toys, paint, and actions and makes them on her own. She liked the idea of Christmas patterns.
Candy canes are certainly Christmasy and they have a sort of pattern too. We had a fairly thick piece of paper from a shirt insert to make several sturdy candy canes. With the paint dabbers, Little Sister just stamped red-green/red-green on one side of the paper. She started way over on the right-hand side of the paper and then came down. It looks more like part of a letter T but she didn’t want any help. Sometimes, it’s hard to step out of the way.
Since candy canes are usually white, Little Sister really wanted some white on hers like a real one. This was pretty tricky. She stamped with red and green and then left a space for the white. She took her time to do this and said the pattern, red-green-white over and over to herself. We put these two candy canes aside to dry. For a while, she stamped the paint dabbers on the newsprint protecting the table. Then she went off to have an orange. Later in the afternoon, I cut around the candy cane shapes and another day she can do more Christmas art patterns on the other side.
Art play time doesn’t have to have an end-product in mind. It can be time to enjoy and explore art materials. Sometimes, there’s a story that goes along with a picture or a craft. Other times, kids are just involved in the process of drawing, painting, gluing, cutting out, and coloring. Their goal is to be hands-on and they are content to just do. Does your child engage in art play?
