1. Mixing colours
This can be done a few ways. You can probably come up with a few more based on the items in your home. We have done it twice so far -- once with bottles of water and food colouring, and once with condiments.
Water: We found 6 empty water bottles (500 ml) and filled them half full of water. I added (with C watching, intently) a few drops of food colouring (red) to one bottle, put the lid back on, and handed it to C. First he pointed at it, and watched the swirls, then he shook and played with it for a minute. Then, of course, he eventually bit it. We moved on to the next bottle (blue) and followed the same procedure, and finally yellow (we used a lot of food colouring for this one). When he exhausted all the good times with the three bottles, I took a fourth bottle, poured in half of the red water, then slowly added half of the yellow water and made orange. (If I were to do this again, I would add the red to the yellow instead, much more visual!!) Then yellow and blue to another bottle to make green, and finally blue and red to a sixth to make purple. He loved it. He absolutely LOVES the bottles, and plays with them often. He has always been a fan of empty plastic bottles, maybe because we do not usually have them at our home, so he only sees them occasionally, and they do make lovely noises.
Condiments: I took a large ziploc bag, and squirted some yellow mustard into one corner of it. Then, into the other side of the bag I poured red catalina salad dressing. (The contrast is nice. You can use anything you like.) Sealed it well, and handed it to C. Well, he thought it was the best thing ever. Of course he inspected it with the tip of his index finger first, but was soon squishing and squeezing the goop inside. I think the cold of the condiments made it even more interesting. He played with the bag until the colours were thoroughly mixed (and a horrible, awful brownish orange, perhaps next time we'll use ketchup) or about 15 minutes, when he promptly threw the bag on the floor. Right. Moving on...
Painting
Painting is the MOST fun. Finger painting especially. Do it sometime. If I were in charge of the world, I would make everyone spend at least ten minutes a day colouring and finger painting. Both are therapeutic and finger painting is honestly one of the best crafts ever.
We use homemade food-based paint since everything goes in his mouth. But actually, he does not eat it. It is really just a precaution in case he sucks his fingers etc, while he is painting.
For cleanliness, I cover his high chair tray with a plastic grocery bag. (We have few of these. So when he is finished, I wash the bag and let it dry for use again.) Garbage bags work well too. I either tie or tape the bag to the tray. For baby, in the warm weather he can do this outside, naked. Until then, I use old clothes that are big and comfy and can get painted on. It's great to have a few of these outfits. We use them everytime he does a messy art project, and actually, they are starting to look pretty cool themselves! Another idea is an old t-shirt of dad's or mom's -- you can either cut out the sleeves and up the seam on either side and use it smock-style, or you can leave it as is and, to make it fit nicely, gather the extra material at the baby's back and hold with a ponytail elastic. (Note: for smock-style, I suggest cutting the sleeves into a few strips and tying them together end to end to make a sort of loose belt for holding the smock nicely around baby's waist.)
Yogurt: I gave C a bit of vanilla yogurt, a piece of paper and a small paint brush. MOST of it went in his mouth. The stuff that ended up on the paper mostly got there from his fingers. Because we do BLW and he recently learned how to use dippers, I think he was a little mislead with the whole exercise. Poor kid. This would probably work well with a child who has not yet had the chance to feed him or herself.
Finger painting: I mixed some plain yogurt with a bit of food colouring, and put it in a very serious looking pot, so C might not be confused by the whole eating thing again. I attached a plate to these amazing plate-suckers-on-to-tables that I got online sometime ago (http://www.lildiner.com), suctioned it to his high chair tray, and drew a picture of a butterfly on the plate with the red yogurt with my finger. C watched me nicely, then promptly and quite aggressively erased my butterfly. I exchanged my plate for a fresh one, and he dabbled nicely with it all for quite some time. Eventually I got bored with the serious pot and dumped the remainder of the paint on his tray.
Finger painting 2: I made some edible paint using this recipe:
http://thewhoot.com.au/whoot-news/crafty-corner/fern%E2%80%99s-fabulous-recipe-for-toddler-safe-paint#.T1lc6lwmkDY.facebook
This time I decided to use paper, and taped a 1/2 piece of white computer paper to the highchair tray. I gave C a small plate (attached to the plate-sucker-on-to-table thingy again) with three splotches of paint on it (red, yellow, blue). He had a blast, and it's very safe to say that the art he created is gift worthy.
So far so good!!
M
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