Artificial flowers are fun to use in a painting activity with toddlers. Use these pretty flowers as paint tools to provide fine motor and creative play. Welcome summer with beautiful flower paintings made with artificial flowers.
A painting activity with toddlers is a great way to support early learning skills such as fine motor and creative.
Kids will love the bright colors of the paint and flowers.
Set out the materials and let your toddler engage in his or her own way. Don’t be surprised if finger painting is part of the process!
We always like to match our activities to a book and for this one I recommend Planting a Rainbow (available HERE on Amazon)
Paint - we always recommend these washable paints.
Artificial flowers (you can always use real ones just before you throw them away too).
Flowers can be found in a crafts store or stores like Dollar Tree Separate individual flowers from a main stem, leaving enough stem on each flower for your child to grasp like a handle.
Pour paint colors into foam trays or jar lids.
Guide your child with the motion of dipping a flower into paint and spreading paint on paper.
- Swish a flower back and forth.
- Press a flower onto the paper like a paint stamp.
- Dip a stem of leaves, like the gold one in the image, into green paint and roll it over the paper to create a stem and leaves for a flower painting.
The different ways to grip and move the flowers around the paper engage developing hand and finger muscles.
Kids might see pictures emerge, such as flowers or a rainbow, or they will just have fun making patterns and designs on the paper.
Since this is a child-led activity, there is no end result that is expected. This process art activity supports the experience and not the outcome and includes: identifying and naming colors; using language to talk about the activity; making hand and finger movements that engage small motor skills.
This a simple activity to set up but one that kids will love. The activity prompts use of early learning in a number of ways as kids explore the materials.
This is a fun activity to welcome spring and summer with toddlers who love to paint!
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Some more toddler activity ideas you might enjoy are:
About the Author
Heather is a former preschool teacher and founder of preschooltoolkit.com, a website providing early learning resources for teachers and parents. She focuses on creating fun crafts and activities that engage developmental skills while promoting hands-on learning through play. Follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram