Explore unconventional materials in new and interesting ways!
We are always looking for unique art materials to make the art process interesting and fun for our students and one of our favorite types of materials to use are things the children would normally see or have at home…
For this process based art activity, we used cotton swabs for painting and egg cartons as our paint palettes. Â First, I would like to tell you about our upcycled egg carton paint palettes…
Using Upcycled Paint Palettes
We have a great pharmacy in our town that likes to save recyclables like egg cartons and cardboard tubes and discarded envelopes for us.  Deborah stops in on occasion to see what they have saved for her and brings all of the treasures home to use at a later time.  You may be wondering why a pharmacy would have discarded egg cartons.  Well, this pharmacy also has some grocery items like milk, eggs, and ice cream.  You know, all the necessities!  A store can save up a lot of interesting things in a hurry and they will save them for preschool teachers like us or anyone else crazy enough to want to store a hundred egg cartons or a huge box of envelopes in their garage to use at a later time.  All of our egg cartons hold one dozen eggs, so there are 12 separate little spots, perfect for holding paint, sorting beads, or counting tokens.  We cut our egg cartons in half and washed them out well before filling them with paint. For styrofoam egg cartons, they can be washed in some dishwashers as well…
Exploring with Cotton Swabs
After filling our egg cartons with paint, we set out another simple but unique art material: cotton swabs. Â It’s always interesting to see how the children will use a new tool…
The children dipped the cotton swabs into the paint and then dabbed it onto their paper. Â Some of our children began exploring their cotton swab paint brush by just making lots of dots on their paper…
Enjoying the Creative Process
Others used the cotton swabs to swipe the paint on their paper, as they might with a paint brush…
Valentine’s Day Inspiration
Two of our girls were feeling the Valentine’s day spirit and chose to paint hearts with their cotton swabs…
Experimenting with Colors and Mixing
And our one little guy who started out making dots on his paper soon realized that those colorful dots could be smeared all over his paper with a few swipes of the cotton swab. Â The dots and colors mixed together to create lines and beautiful blobs…
Deborah saw how much fun the children were having with their two new art materials and decided to have a go at it herself…
Introducing new art materials can be hit or miss with our class. Â But these two simple, inexpensive tools really seemed to be winners for us! Â Do you have any unique art tool ideas that you would like to share? Â Leave a comment below letting us know your favorites!
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