Our Earth rocks: a pour painting activity

To continue our celebration of Earth day we created Earth-inspired pour painted rocks. Although we do all kinds of pouring in our classroom including pouring in the water and sand table, pouring our own juice at snack time, and even pouring glue for art – pour painting is a process that we hadn’t tried before…

Earth rocks and pour painting by Teach Preschool

Any kind of pouring that takes place involves the use of eye-hand coordination and the ability to judge when to stop and when to keep going but the nice thing about pour painting is that you really can’t get it wrong no matter how much or how little you pour…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

To encourage the children to focus on “pouring” and not on “dumping” the paint, we encouraged the children to slowly pour the paint from the cups and to keep switching back and forth between colors until they had used up all of their paint. Here is how the process looked…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

The children held a cup of paint high above the center of their rock, then slowly began pouring…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

The children poured a small amount of their first paint color onto their rock then they chose their second color and began slowly pouring it in the center of their rock, on top of their first color…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

The children alternated pouring their colors on top of each other until their rocks were covered and their cups were empty…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

This process is wonderfully simple, yet the results are so beautiful!  By alternating the colors that are poured, the paint is pushed down the rock, creating brilliant designs…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

Pour painting requires a paint with the right consistency for pouring. In our case, we used a mixture of white water soluble, low odor house paint (that’s why the children had to wear paint smocks on this one) and tempera paint but the mess pretty much stayed contained in the box we used to hold our rocks…

Our Earth rocks! by Teach Preschool

Pour painting is also known as Tall Painting. Here is a video that I shared last year of Tall Painting (in case you haven’t ever seen it before)…

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Links to grow on: 

Tall Painting, Tall Town: from Go Beyond the Classroom

Ketchup and mustard squeeze painting in preschool by Teach Preschool

Our “tall paintings” by Teacher Tom

Rainbow pour painted pots by Dilly-Dali Art

Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

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