Today's activity was the 9th in our 50 day activity challenge - my attempt to complete 50 different play activities with Isabelle before Christmas.Isabelle isn't a big fan of paint on her hands - which we found out when we tried to do finger painting a few months ago - so I thought using the stamps would be a good way for her to paint without having to actually touch paint.
I saved 3 toilet roll tubes for this, and coaxed two of them into a triangle and square shape, simply by nipping in the sides to create the rough shape. I knew I would need quite a shallow dish for the paint so decided to use some old takeaway tubs. We only had 2 left, so I chose just to use red and yellow paint this time round (more takeaway is clearly needed!).
Since Isabelle just loves to squeeze the paint out of the bottles, and get it everywhere, I set this up when she wasn't in the room. The 3 shapes, two tubs of paint and some of our paper roll were all that we needed. When I showed her the activity, and showed her what to do, she immediately started saying "Dip dip! Stamp stamp!"She was great at putting the tube into the paint and swishing it about, before
stamp-stamping it all over the page. She mixed the colours, and I told her the names of the different shapes.
The activity definitely worked well, and she loved it....for five minutes. Then, she decided she had had enough and off she went. It's definitely my fault, as my dad had told me she wouldn't settle to anything all day, so this type of structured activity really wasn't the best choice at all. That said, she was really enjoying it for the first part, so I know when I decide to do this again she will take to it well.
Instead of the stamping, she decided she wanted to play on her ladybird, and climb on the chair with her babies. I did leave the paint out as an invitation to play, and Simon and I actually painted quite a bit, but she didn't come back to it - bouncing between other toys instead. Her uncle came round after dinner, and they played babies and with her day 4 ball chute as well.
I think, going forward with teh 50 day challenge, I maybe need to create two ists of activities - some which are structured like the painting, and some which are more 'come and go', like the ball chute, so I can match them to her mood, to ensure she gets the most out of each activity.
