Foil Painting

As a child, I loved nothing more than to sit down with a colouring book and some pencils or a pad of paper and just draw/colour away for hours on end. Whilst Tommy definitely looks like me, he certainly isn't like me in terms of the things he enjoys doing the most. He is just an outdoorsy kind of boy; he loves nothing more than running around the garden, playing football, chasing Daddy or the dog and just generally being active. Although he enjoys anything and everything, painting and drawing are probably his least favourite activities. Some people say it's a gender thing, others an age thing but I tend to see it as a personal thing - he's just not really as interested in doing it as he is other things. I am fine with this to an extent, but whilst I want to obviously try and do activities with him I know he will enjoy and not try and force him into doing them, it is important for him to draw and paint regularly to help with his fine motor skills and creative development. Therefore I do build regular opportunities for doing artwork into his time at home.

Whilst Tommy can read a huge number of high frequency words, 'read' numbers up to 100 and knows all of his sounds, he is more reluctant to write and it always feels like I'm pushing him to do it rather than encouraging him. We're trying lots of fun ways of getting him to write at the moment, most of which have been successful, so I really think that I multi-sensory/more practical approach is going to be the route to go down. With this in mind, I've been looking for lots of different ways we can incorporate mark/making and emerging writing into our play. 

We found the idea of foil-painting on Pinterest and thought it would be a good one to try with Tommy. To set it up, we placed long lengths of tin foil in a tuff tray and stuck them down using cellotape. I then drew lots of different patterns on individual coloured cards so that Tommy could practise drawing a range of different shapes. This provided him with a starting point and gave him a little inspiration as to the kinds of patterns he might create. Tommy is getting really good at copying shapes and patterns without having to trace. We used ordinary poster paint for this activity. I was a little worried about how quickly it would dry but it actually surprised me how little time it took. 

I pretty much expected this activity to last for just a few minutes - I always prepare myself for this when we paint or draw, knowing how little Tommy enjoys it. However, we managed to continue this activity for ages. It even warranted me to remove our piece of artwork and replace it with another blank foil canvas and there was a request to do it another day! 

We really enjoyed this activity and it would be lovely to do with a younger child too - the tin foil makes a lovely noise when it's painted on and it's a lovely surface to swirl the paint around on. Here is one of our masterpieces:

Farm Small World

We LOVE a small world at our house and I set them up regularly for Tommy and I to play with together or for Tommy to play with independently. They can sometimes take a long time to plan and set up and it can be a bit soul-destroying if your child plays with them for 5 minutes and then becomes disinterested. It makes you not want to bother again. Luckily for us, small worlds are always a hit with our four-year old. It's usually me that ends up begging to put it away after it's been set up for a week and begins to get in the way. A small world is something I can guarantee Tommy will play with for at least an hour at a time. And there are very few of his toys I could say that about. It is something he is very happy to play with, either with an adult or on his own.

We are huge fans of Schleich models in our house and I remember owning many as a child. They're so useful for imaginative play because they are a decent size, realistic and extremely hard-wearing. We already own a good collection of dinosaurs, wild animals and farm animals.

When it comes to small worlds, I try and plan something that makes use of items we already have, rather than buying new things. Because we had a large collection of farm animals and vehicles, it would be easy to create a farm small world.

For the landscape, I pretty much emptied the kitchen cupboards to see what I could find that might look like animal bedding. I eventually settled on porridge oats, red lentils, cornflakes, rice and spaghetti. I also used several shredded wheat for hay bales.

I then added green tissue paper to make fields, Lego fences, buildings and flowers. Several Lego animals also made an appearance too. I cut out a piece of foam and covered it in cling film to make it look like water and placed this in the centre of the tray to look like a pond.finally, I added the farm animals and several vehicle and it was ready! 

This was such a hit with Tommy. He spent a long time feeding the animals and using the vehicles to carry out jobs around the farm. He used the tractors to move the materials around and invented scenarios involving the different animals. He had so much fun with it. 

 

As with so many of our small worlds, we left this out for a few days, so it could be played with again and again. The only downside was that this small world was made out of edible materials; we went out only to come back and find the dog had eaten all of the cornflakes! :(