Want a simple heart themed craft to try with your toddler? I guarantee that ball art will be a hit!
As part of our annual kindness challenge, we are making some hearts to give away to people. I thought it would be fun to combine a few of my son's favorite things (balls and paint) to create a little heart masterpiece. I think the process is even more exciting than the product.
RELATED: Check out more of our favorite heart themed crafts and activities here.
Materials Needed:
- paint
- cardstock
- tape
- ball shaped objects
- metal tin with lid
- scissors
- markers
- stickers
Directions:
1. Go on a hunt around your house to locate small ball-shaped objects (spheres)... ones you are willing to get paint on (ours were jingle bells, beads, and pom poms).
2. Cut out hearts from construction paper.
3. Tape one (or a few depending on sizes) to the bottom of the metal tin.
4. Add some drops of paint to the bottom of the tin.
5. Add your ball shaped objects to the tin. We tried each object by itself and then added all of them at the end.
6. Put the lid on top of the tin. Make sure it won't come off!
7. Start shaking! High, low, fast, slow, side to side, up and down, right and left... this is a fun way to learn about directional words or talk about antonyms.
8. Check out how it is coming... and then keep shaking!
If your child has some self-control, you can try shaking with the lid off as well and see what other type of designs you can make.
9. Take the heart out of the tin and let it dry.
Even the remnants of the heart paper made a pretty design on the tin.
Keep cutting out hearts and trying out the ball painting process with new objects. Have any of you ever done this before? What did you do differently? I am in love with this activity and will be trying it again soon!
There are tons of ways to use these painted hearts. We used one to make a card for our mailman.
Later today we'll talk about what else we want to do with them. My little guy already has a long list of people/animals we are giving hearts to... including the ducks nearby. He's thinking we should cut a heart out of bread and feed it to them. 🙂 I never would've thought of that!
So far our kindness project is going well! It has been especially helpful for me since I'm not the most patient now that I am sleeping less and caring for a newborn!
Learn more about our 100 Acts of Kindness project HERE.
Our favorite kindness song is "Kindness begins with me"... you can listen to it here.
I have done this and many other of your sensory activities posted. My son LOVES all of it, as he's a very hand's on kiddo. Thank you for all your posts! I come to this website often!
Babysitting this weekend and taking this idea! Will let you know if I do anything differently. Love the picture of your son with the HUGE smile! Cutie.
What a cute idea! My kids love marble painting. Since you used a metal tin you could drag a magnet around the bottom instead of shaking it 🙂 With the lid off it would be fun to watch.
Thanks for all the positive comments! If you try this out and tweak it, I'd love to hear what you do.
Darcey- thanks for including this on your weekly favorites!! I'll have to go check out the other ones. You have great ideas on there.
Awww, what cute ideas! Love the mailman letter 🙂
Looks like a blast. I can't wait to try this with my son.
I really like this idea for toddlers especially. We did something like this with our preschoolers a couple of months ago, but only had one golf ball. I like the idea of trying other ball like objects as well. Plus it makes a cute Valentine craft. I've included your post on my weekly favorites here: play2grow.blogspot.com/2011/01/weekly-favorites-for-january-23-2011.html
looks like so much fun! and very cute!
This crafto looks like fun. I love controlled painting.