It’s never too early to start introducing creative activities to children. Here are 12 fun process art painting activities especially for babies and toddlers. Each easy art idea will allow your young artists to interact with paint in a multitude of different ways.
Some of these activities are super messy fun, stimulating all of the senses and some are mess-free for those times when you need it clean and easy!
Each baby art idea will allow your baby or toddler to explore, experiment and create in their own unique way!
Enjoy!
You can check out all our other favourite painting ideas here too.
Introducing your child to art and craft activities from the get go, is a wonderful way to help nurture their creativity and a life long long of art.
You know your baby or toddler best so please take care to judge which activities will work well and safely for you and your child.
Whether you are looking for something small scale or big, messy or clean, you’re sure to find an easy art idea to suit your needs in this fun range of painting activities for babies and toddlers.
What is Process Art?
Process art is a term used to describe open ending art activities. Here the focus is on the process rather than on a finished product.
For example, we are not asking or expecting children to create a particular finished product, or even a finished product at all!
Instead we are providing them with the equipment and tools for them to explore and experiment in their own unique way.
With process art the child takes the lead and the enjoyment, experimentation and learning each child gains from the experience will be unique to them.
As a teacher I always loved providing my young students with open ended process art experiences. It’s amazing how the same art supplies can be used in different ways by different children.
You might want to take a look at our wonderful hands-on Painting with Nature activity. It gives lots of examples of how children can approach things in different ways and the wonderfully empowering experience this can be for them.
12 Fun Painting Activities For Babies And Toddlers
1 – MESS FREE ZIP LOCK PAINTING is a great art activity to stimulate baby’s sense of touch and sight and they can enjoy watching all the wonderful colours merge, mix and change.
2 – CLING FILM ART is another mess free painting activity for babies that allows children to really experience the movement of paint and listen carefully and you might hear some lovely squelchy noises too!
3 – GROSS MOTOR ART is great for babies and toddlers that are up on their feet. This activity encourages them to go big and experience paint with large body movements.
4 – ICE PAINTING for babies and toddlers is a sensory delight they’re sure to love. How wonderful to explore temperature and melting while creating too. (Be careful to avoid ice burns!)
5 – SPLAT PAINTING doesn’t need much explanation! Be prepared for mess and let your babies and toddlers have fun. You could consider doing this activity in the bath tub to make cleaning up super easy.
6 – PAPER PLATE ART is a super floor based activity for baby that encourages them to move around developing both fine and gross motor skills.
7 – BUBBLE WRAP PAINTING can be done as a finger painting activity or with tools like brushes and rollers. Children will love exploring paint and texture together.
8 – SWATTER PAINTING is a fun painting activity for babies and toddlers using you guessed it, a swatter! Kids will delight in the splatters, splashes and sounds of this art experience. For babies not yet on their feet you could offer this as a floor activity too.
9 – SPONGE PAINTING is a fun alternative to painting with brushes. Children can enjoy exploring both sides of the sponge and smearing and rubbing the sponge to mix colours and create different textures. Add some watered down paint and kids can squeeze and see the paint drip and splatter too.
10 – LIGHT TABLE PAINTING really gives those colors a zing and luminosity kids will love. This mess free painting activity for babies allows them to really explore colour mixing.
11 – WINDOW PAINTING is another great mess free art activity that brings the colours to life through the use of light. A great alternative to using a light table.
12 – BALL PAINTING is great fun for kids and encourages lots of gross motor skills as they tip, turn and roll the balls around in the paint. In this article I refer to marbles but for young children I would use larger safe sized balls instead but the method is otherwise the same.
I hope you’ll feel inspired to explore this great range of painting activities for babies and toddlers. It is wonderful to give even the very young opportunities to experiment with colours and textures and to create.
I love that all of these painting activities for babies are process art techniques that focus on the experience of doing rather than the outcome of a finished piece.
More Painting Ideas To Fall In Love With:
