I decided to be really cheap and go through my pantry for this week’s art project. I went with dry hard foods that varied in color and shape. Things we weren’t going to be using for a while that were super inexpensive and easy to replace. I chose the foods that the kids would have an easy time manipulating on their own. Now… what to do with the dry goods?
At
the store I ran across an amazing sale on glue for $.17 a bottle of glue, so I
picked up six bottles… I kind of cleaned them out {oops}. Okay, we are getting
somewhere now! Dry food, check. Glue, check… and a quick look in my art supply
cabinet told me I was up to my eyeballs in construction paper. Now to get
crafty!
If my children were older I would have asked them to create a drawing of their own on the construction paper. But since one of my children is just learning to write and the other is way too little I asked them what they would like to create. My oldest wanted a monster and informed me what he needed to look like {he refused to draw it himself when prompted and since that was not the goal of the craft today I let it slide}. The youngest told me a shape and we went from there.
What you need:
Dry
foods {I used lentils, pinto beans, black beans, and macaroni noodles –
uncooked}
Paper
Glue
Pencil
How to make it:
Create
a drawing on the paper using the pencil. Think simple. The goal of this
activity is to create the art using the dry goods. Let the beans, lentils, and
macaroni do the talking!
Take
the glue and pour it on the paper. Go by sections so that you do not waste
glue.
Apply
the dry goods onto the glue.
Once
complete set aside and let dry.
For my youngest child this activity was more about the textiles and manipulating the small supplies than the creation of an actual finished work. As he is not yet 2 years old he was content to randomly sticking beans and noodles on his paper… even if there was no glue there to stick it to. This was a great fine motor building activity for him. After the initial desire to try to eat the food and being told no, he did outstanding.
For
my oldest son who is 4 years old this was more about the process of picking and
choosing where certain colors went. He was very keen on keeping in the lines
and not mixing colors. While this activity was a good fine motor development
activity for both children, my oldest was much more interested in the finished
product.
We
sat at the table for a good hour or more creating our works of art. The clean
up was a bit more than I anticipated, as there were beans everywhere! So if you
are working with little ones be prepared for a serious sweeping session after
this craft.
