Messy Play - A Birthday card for Daddy

Yesterday was Daddy's birthday. Unfortunately he was away on a business trip, but C and I spent some of the afternoon making him a birthday card.

 

I haven't done much messy play with C before today as she is not very keen on getting her hands dirty and we have not had a messy area where it has been safe to let her loose.

Luckily our new playroom (once our sophisticated sun lounge) is almost finished so while C was down for her lunchtime nap I put a plastic sheet down on the floor and set up the red, blue, green and yellow poster paints into trays.

Due to a slight oversight on my part we had no paint brushes however i cut up some kitchen sponges into a variety of shapes to use for printing, and of course there was always hands and feet!

Once C was awake I stripped her down to her nappy and led her into the playroom. She was immediately very interested in the items laid across the floor. We say down on the mat and i showed her how to do some printing. I then handed her a ready painted sponge and watched her press it to the paper.

Next, to my surprise, she reached for the tray of blue paint and stuck her hand right in. I suspect it was quite cold to the touch and she seemed very unsure about what she had done. I reassured her all was OK and showed her how to make hand prints on the paper. Unfortunately at this point C decided she did not like the sensation of paint on her hands any longer and strongly indicated she wanted to be cleaned up.  While cleaning up her blue left hand she then stuck out her right and stuck it straight in the tray of green paint. This was quickly followed by a howl as she did not like the feel of that either.  I quickly used up the paint on her hand by                                                                 making a couple of green hand prints, then cleaned her up.

Once clean she was still very interested in everything that was on the mat and kept prodding and poking the sponges. I think there is some hope for our messy play in the future, once she realises that it is OK to get dirty as you can always be cleaned up afterwards.

After C had gone to bed that night and the paint had dried, i cut out the best of C's solo work and mounted it on a handmade card for Daddy. 

We hope he likes it!