"thing" painting

One of my favorite things is to find new ways to paint and new things to paint with.  (I also love finding new interesting tools for discovery the sensory table).  The honest truth is that if I gave children the same paints in the same way, there are some of the kids in my class that would NEVER tire of it.  There are others, however, that only want to paint when I come up with a new way for them to paint or a new thing to paint with. So it is for them (and admittedly for my own amusement) that I search for new ways to paint all the time.

While shopping at Target the other day (this was probably a quick trip in for toothpaste and dog food), I stopped in the "one spot" bargain section (where they have treasures for either a dollar or sometimes 2.50). It was in this section that I found some dish washing tools that you will see below and thought immediately of painting.  I put in each container 1/2 liquid tempera paint and 1/2 water, and shook well then put it out on the table with paper to paint.  Now, I did end up telling them that they had to push the button on the top to get the paint out after hearing several complaints of "it doesn't work!"  Once they had this working, however, they really had some fun.

This activity didn't appeal to everyone, but it had a few visitors that don't frequent art opportunities, and a few of the regulars made dozens of paintings.

The letters on the paper above, by the way, are actually created by a child attempting to spell dog on her painting for some reason.