We always have lots of painting activities on our ‘to do’ list and I was pleased to finally get around to doing this one, cardboard shape stamps. It’s not a new activity, in fact Mama, Papa, Bubba inspired me with this post, but it was one I knew little Possum (2.5 years) would have a great time doing.
Recommended age : 2.5 years
(I always recommend active supervision on all my activities)
Cardboard shape stamps
You will need –
- Cardboard tubes
- Paint
- Paper
We love to recycle whatever we can and so reusing some of the toilet rolls and turning them into painting stamps was going to be perfect for this activity. You could easily keep them circular in shape, however, I chose to mould them with my hands into various basic shapes. This added an extra educational dimension to this activity and would help boost her knowledge of shapes and colours.
Setting up this activity is very easy. I decided to do it outdoors as it was a nice enough day to do so.
Before we began painting with our shape stamps we talked about colours and what else we knew that had those colours. Possum is becoming quite good at recognising colours because we talk about it whenever we can.
Possum couldn’t wait to get into painting with the cardboard stamps. I demonstrated to her how to stamp (rather than brushing like a paint brush) and she took to it very quickly and with a massive smile on her face.
With each stamp we talked about what colours was being used and what shapes she had in her hand. I would also casually highlight the basic characteristics of each shape, such as the sides and corners.
This is a fun activity for all ages!
By offering a variety of colours, we found that some of them began to mix together. This activity opened up a great opportunity to talk about how colours can mix together to make completely different and new colours.
This type of activity would really be great in creating some beautiful wrapping paper!
It wasn’t long before we had made pages and pages of beautifully stamped pieces of art! Possum loved this activity so much and was very proud of all that she created. This certainly was an activity that held her interest for a very long time and taught her more about colours and shapes.
Would your child enjoy stamping with cardboard tubing?
More ideas you’ll love –
Ebooks available featuring Laughing Kids Learn
This is on my list of things to do with Noah too… I wonder if I could bend a tube into a star shape!?!?
Doh! I totally should have done that. LOL
Great idea Kate and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard at all. Such a fun painting activity.
Soooo many uses for toilet rolls!! Hoarding them is totally justified right?
This looks like such fun! 🙂
Lots of fun thank you Leslie! Thank you for popping over to my blog. I’m a fan. 😉
I am totally going to start stocking up on my empty toilet paper rolls. It’s a great way to get kids to use paint, and it isn’t too messy, either… Or is it?!?!
Hi Reena!
Lovely to see your comment on my blog. I love to hear from those who read my posts!
I have to say that I’m often quite good at predicting the length of time an activity will take to complete, however, Possum spent probably twice as long as I thought she would painting with those toilet rolls. Seriously give this a try.
Paint always has the risk of being a bit messy, however, I think if you dress little ones in an apron and put down a drop sheet you’ll be completely fine. I also like to have a wet face washer on hand too. Feel free to email me some pictures of your children’s work and I can share it on my Facebook page if you have time and interested to – laughingkidslearn@gmail.com
Kate