Ball painting

Watching the children walk into the studio and wander around the space to discover the experiences on offer is always a highlight of what we do. On our large table this morning we had set up a motion painting experience. The questions soon followed, “What is this?”, “What do we do here?” and “What is that?”

We had placed white paper into trays together with large spatulas and a few bouncy balls. The children had the opportunity to choose their paint colours and squeeze them on to the paper. This was only the start of the fun! A couple of balls were added and the children either chose to push the balls around with a spatula or they picked up the tray and let the balls roll back and forth and side to side.

The results of the colour mixing and patterns obviously looked amazing but beyond the aesthetics, this experience encourages both fine and gross motor skills with the children being able to squeeze the paint and also move the balls around the tray. It also develops hand-eye coordination and introduces concepts such as colour mixing, patterning and understanding cause and effect.

squeeeeeeeze the paint

Using the spatula to move the balls around.

Shaking the tray all around.

Once the paper was pulled out of the tray, we spent time observing the outcome, identifying the colours, pointing out the lines and negative space and the effect of movement.