We have spent the two weeks at home and our art trays have been well used. I've presented a different painting tray each day. Want to take a look?

Our painting trays from this week include:

• round paint stampers - while these are fun to use, they can also help us to talk about size - small, medium, and large or smallest and biggest.
• uv glow paint - at first this paint doesn't look special but it lights up and glows under ultraviolet light. 
• paint bellows - used with liquid watercolours. The child squeezes the bellows to squirt the watercolours onto the paper. 
• patterned paint scrapers - the paint is in the clear bottles, the child squirts the paint onto the paper and then scrapes it with the paint scraper to leave a pattern. This can be a lovely sensory experience for children who like to use lots of squelchy paint.
• alphabet stampers - these are fantastic for developing literacy skills. I've only put out letters to words my three-year-old knows but we could present them to older children all at once for a larger piece of work. 
• textured rollers - these have also been a hit, the child puts paint on the roller then applies it to the paper, the textured rollers leave interesting patterns. 

Our paint and materials are c/o Modern Teaching Aids. 

We've been using our textured palm printers. These printers are also suitable to use on play dough and clay. 

They could also be used with a stamp pad. 

It looks a bit like fireworks. 

Round paint stampers. We used these with uv paint, you can see the results far below. While round stampers make good patterns, I like that these are in different sizes.

We let these dry then use the paint stampers with a different colour. 

This is some simple painting with uv glow paint. 

We can take the painting to a dark corner, a dark room or wait for nighttime, and then shine the uv light on it, and it glows!

This is the first time we've used paint bellows. You put the liquid watercolour paints into the bellows.

The child squished the bellow and pushes the paint onto the paper. This uses the hand muscles in a different way. I'd love to use the paint bellows on a larger piece of messy art. Otto love squirting the paint. 

Using paint patterned paint scrapers. 

This squishing the paint out is good for developing hand strength. 

These are so pretty and fun to use.

Each scraper leaves a different pattern. 

Using alphabet stampers. This can be used for literacy play without the paint. My three-year-old has been carrying them around the house and naming them. 

My three-year-old can only spell a few words and is very interested in writing his own name and the names of his brothers.

This is also in the uv glow paint. 

We love using textured rollers. 

We also let this dry and used the rollers again with a different colour. 

Wow! The paintings shown with the uv light!! It's like magic! 

Please note that I like to use heavy art-type paper, often watercolour paper as it holds the paint and doesn't rip easily. 

Resources (AU): uv glow paint, paint bellows, patterned paint scrapers, alphabet stampers, textured rollers, textured palm printers, white paint tray c/o Modern Teaching Aids

Similar (US): round paint stampers, patterned paint scrapers, textured rollers, textured palm printers.  

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