Hellobee

I love reading about art activities for toddlers, so today I have put together a round-up of all the art activities Otis has tried in the past two years.

Art experiences are often limited by what is safe. Children are prone to putting things in their mouth, so parents need to use supervision and discretion when choosing activities.

Otis started with finger painting at seven months. Our paint was simply a flour, water and food colouring mixture on a tray.

He tried sponge painting at thirteen months.

String painting is really easy for toddlers.

We’ve tried a couple of types of crayons. Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons are our favourite. Honeysticks Beeswax Crayons (shown above) are good too. For the earliest drawings I used tape to secure the paper to the table.

For a quiet and clean art experience I love dot stickers. These look great framed.

We shortened the legs of our child sized easel to make it the right height for a toddler.

Painting with pots of paint and large pieces of paper is fun too.

For large finger painting experiences, we like wee can too, an all natural finger paint.

We almost always have play-dough on our art shelf. I rotate different tools, cutters and other items for using with the dough like craft sticks and buttons (again be careful with toddlers putting items into their mouth).

For something alternative, we’ve tried painting with Ochre (also all natural) using sticks and leaves.

At two years we’ve recently tried drawing with natural charcoal. Charcoal is fantastic for young children as it goes onto the paper really smoothly with very little pressure.

Also at two years, Otis has enjoyed pasting and collage.

The only medium I haven’t pictured is clay! Clay is great for toddlers and will interest older children too.

I have shown our Art Centre here which is designed to meet the needs of both my children.

I’d love to hear any suggestions! What are your favourite art activities for toddlers?