Artsy Babies: Art Day!

Clipart by Krista Wallden of Creative Clips. Graphic designed on PicMonkey.

Today's theme for Artsy Babies was art!  We found a very cute printable that allowed caregivers to turn their baby's fingerprints into balloons, we did some painting in a bag, and made mini paper collages with Ellison die cut-outs and contact paper.  

The biggest challenge for today's program was keeping the art projects simple and relatively mess-free while also trying to make the projects different from our Mini Masterpieces program (which is an art-specific program for babies and caregivers).

THE PLAN

Welcome Song: Wake Up Feet

Wake up feet, wake up feet
Wake up feet and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
Wake up feet, wake up feet
Wake up and wiggle in the morning.

Wake up hands, wake up hands
Wake up hands and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
Wake up hands, wake up hands
Wake up and wiggle in the morning.

Wake up ears, wake up ears
Wake up ears and wiggle, wigglw, wiggle
Wake up ears, wake up ears
Wake up and wiggle in the morning.

Book

We used this book from the Alphaprints board book series because fingerprints are used to form the illustrations.  We thought that would tie in nicely to the fingerprint art!

Art Activities

We set all of our activities up around the room in stations so caregivers and babies could rotate through each activity.  In addition to our three stations that had art projects, we also put out our bin of baby toys and a book display cart with some of our favorite picture books.  

Fingerprint Art

My colleague found these darling elephant printables.  Caregivers pressed baby's fingers into washable non-toxic stamp pads and used baby's tiny inky fingers to make balloons.  We also included some washable markers for caregivers to write baby's name, the date, or to draw any additional details they wanted onto the page.  We provided Babyganics wipes for caregivers to clean baby's fingers after they were done creating their fingerprint masterpiece.

Painting in a Bag

We used Crayola washable finger paint, white cardstock, and gallon sized Ziploc bags.  We cut two inches off of the top of the cardstock so that it would fit nicely into the Ziploc bags.  We also squirted a dollop of paint onto each piece of cardstock, carefully placed the cardstock inside of the bags, and sealed the bags.  The bags held up really well!  The caregivers even found the painting in a bag to be soothing!

Mini Mural on Contact Paper

We set out an assortment of Ellison-die cut shapes, pre-cut contact paper, and sheets of cardstock for caregivers and babies to make mini paper murals.  This was our most popular activity.

Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This

To the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"

We wave goodbye like this
We wave goodbye like this
We clap our hands for all our friends
We wave goodbye like this.

If you would like to see the post from our first week of Artsy Babies click here.