Around here you can find bumpy balls at just about any store.
I picked up eight bumpy balls from the Dollar Tree which were fairly squishy (kind of like a thick bumpy balloon) for my classroom and then set them aside for a few weeks trying to decide what to do with them.
I finally decided that the bumpy balls would make a great painting tool and so we set them out with different colors of paint, crayons, and paper.
Exploring this Tool for Painting
On this particular day, we were also exploring lots of flowers around the classroom so you will notice that some of my students used the bumpy balls and crayons to make flowers.
Bumpy balls are also called sensory balls, knobby balls, spiky balls, and probably other terms I am not familiar with.
The best part about bumpy ball painting is the texture. It is all about sensory and texture as the children feel the bumps on the ball, discover the bumpy paint prints left behind on paper, and enjoy the squishy feeling when pushing down or pulling up while printing or painting with the balls.
Many of my students spent quite some time exploring the process of bumpy ball painting. Some of the children just used one color and some painted with all the different colors.
The prints left behind were simply beautiful and the experience led to plenty of opportunities to reinforce descriptive language as the children painted.
Some of my students who don’t always choose to paint found painting with a bumpy ball irresistible.
Completing the Drawing
Of course, bumpy balls would be a fabulous texture to add to the water table so after the children completed their paintings, I washed up the bumpy balls and set them aside for another day of bumpy ball explorations.
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