Sponge Painting with My Toddler – A Fun Activity for Kids

My Sunday morning was well-spent with my daughter as we prepared our sponge painting session.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to paint with my daughter so that she can explore and get creative. She is now 2 years old and I haven’t had the chance to expose her to paints so I figured today was the day to get to it.

The day before, I have already planned my shopping trip and grabbed the supplies we needed for our painting session.

I knew my daughter would enjoy it because I distinctively remember my daughter playing with paints at grandma’s and grandpa’s and the excitement she had was golden.

After all, who doesn’t like playing with paint? With a few supplies, you can make it happen too!

Here’s a snapshot of some items I’ve gathered. There were a few that didn’t make the pic!

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Supplies

• A scissor
• Some clothespins
• Tempera paint (make sure it’s washable)
• Sponges
• Paintbrush
• Poster sheet (not visible but the supplies are laid out on the sheet)
• Optional: White, craft paper; cup filled with water; plastic plate

I love that painting can be such a simple and enjoyable activity for kids. It doesn’t require a lot of supplies and some of these items, you probably have it at home.

Rather than using a poster sheet, you can also use other craft papers for painting.

I did end up using a white, 8.5 x 11, cardstock paper on top of the poster sheet just because I wanted multiple “artworks”.

Sponge Painting

The first thing I started with was, the sponges.

I grabbed my pair of scissors and cut up a few shapes (heart, square, triangle, star, and circle).

Next, I folded the shapes in half and slowly cut two slits into the sponges so that the clothespin can grasp the sponge.

These will be used as my sponge dabbers.

Afterwards, I set up our workstation.

With the poster sheet laid out first, I used it as our base and then laid all the other supplies on top.

This would help protect any additional paints that could get onto the table underneath (although the paint is washable).

Once it was complete, we started painting away…

My daughter loved the colors and paint.

She especially took a liking to the paintbrush rather than the sponges so most of our time was spent painting with brushes (sadly I worked hard on those sponge shapes though!).

With the brush, she could simply dab all over the paper and plate and she even dipped it in the water cup for added fun.

Prior to our painting session, I prepared my homemade coffee (favorite is the Great Value Donuts brand – Med. Roast) in a foam cup, similar to the one pictured above.

While I had my coffee cup in one hand, my daughter unconsciously assumed that my coffee cup was the water cup for brushes and she happily dipped her brush in my cup!

It was with great sadness that I lost a cup of coffee but nothing could beat the beautiful smiles my daughter had.

Overall, this was one of our most fun activities we had together.

A Tip About Using the Right Paint

When I purchased my items from the store, I was at a loss as to what kind of paint I needed.

I checked out the Office Supplies aisle and discovered a few Crayola paints and grabbed them into my cart.

A few walks here and there around the store brought me to the Crafts section and discovered MORE paints there.

Soon I began to question the real paints I needed for our sponge painting session.

Without a doubt, I needed the paint to be washable and non-toxic since I’ll be using it with my toddler.

Prior to my shopping trip, I actually researched the kind of paint I needed and recalled that tempera paint was recommended.

It is known that tempera paint is water-based and washable. It’s also best used for kids crafts, poster boards, finger and sponge painting so I figured tempera paint was what I needed.

If you’re looking for a good and safe finger paint, make sure the paint is tempera paint and not acrylic (not washable).

Oh, and one more thing.

If you enjoyed this post, please share? Other mamas may enjoy this activity as well.