Messy Play. Finger Painting Dinosaurs.

This was a failed countdown activity. I thought we will sit and make palm prints and make reindeer and Santa and other Christmasy stuff. Only today Santino decided what he wanted to do, so he included his friends, the dinosaurs.

I made 4 jars of finger paint (recipe here). He covered dinosaurs with paint, made dinosaur foot prints, and tried making prints with other parts, like tails, heads, bodies. He found out, that stiff curved sides don't make distinct prints. I think he decided to increase the amount of paint, hoping that would work better. It didn't. No good prints to show, but lots of colorful mess!

Then he covered his hands in all colors at once and admired them for a while. I had noticed this before, he likes to mix all colors together. There is no "green for the grass" and "yellow for the Sun". No. Its everything at the same time! That's his rule of paint, so to speak.

We did do some hand printing, but it was mostly for fun, not "for art".

I didn't fret about this failed activity. Well, the activity didn't fail, it just took another course. As a creative person myself, I keep an open mind and let Santino explore and make his own decisions. After all, art is a process, there is no right or wrong, only the way to express what's on your mind. Santino happens to have dinosaurs on his mind lately. A lot.

We finished this activity the way we usually finish up our messy plays: we washed the dinosaurs. It was another reason for Santino to play with water and bubbles. A win every time.