Paint that baby!

Yesterday I let Q paint outside in the warm sun. We made painty footprints and handprints and I even showed her how to put some paint on her cheeks and legs! She loved looking in the mirror at the paint. I made sure to talk about the fact that when we are inside we paint out paper, but when we paint outside we can paint our bodies.

Afterward she had so much fun washing up and playing in the hose! She discovered the fun of filling her little wheelbarrow and then dumping it over....again and again! My dry grass loved this!

One note....the actual time she spent painting was about 5 minutes. Toddlers still have a really short attention span, even with super-fun activities. Sometimes its frustrating to put all the time into preparing and cleaning up an activity when the child only spends 5 minutes engaged in it. However, the more you repeat and practice activities, the longer they will keep interested. Just remember you are training your child how to paint (or whatever the activity) and it's worth the effort!