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Dropper Painting for Kids

October 28, 2014 by Kate 16 Comments

If you’re looking for an activity for your little one that is simple to set up, will have them engaged in learning about colours and developing fine motor skills then I present this fun and creative approach to painting. It’s dropper painting for kids. 

learning about colours and mixing color

 Possum (almost 3 years old) absolutely loved, loved, loved this painting activity. She really didn’t want it to end and that only happened because I ran out of paper towelling. Doh! As you can imagine, paper towelling was added to the shopping list for us to play this again. 

Recommended age : 2.5 years +
(Active supervision is required on all my activities shared)

what you will need for painting activity

Dropper Painting for Kids

You will need – 

  • Dropper or pipettes 
  • Absorbent paper towel sheets
  • Water
  • Food colouring
  • Activity tray
  • Cups

Simply add 10 drops of food colouring to a cup and mix in 4 tablespoons of water. This will make your ‘paint’ that your child can draw up into a plastic dropper and drip onto the paper towelling. I recommend placing some kind of tray under the paper towelling to ensure the colouring doesn’t seep and stain any surfaces. 

Colour painting with droppers

blending and mixing colours in dropper activities.

Learning about Colours

As you can just imagine, this activity is wonderful for helping support children and their understanding of colours. I decided to only offer Possum basic primary colour ‘paints’, as I knew the activity for later lend itself to us talking about mixing colours together and making new colours. 

dropper toddler preschooler painting activity

  fine motor painting activity

What colours can you see? 

dropper art painting for fine motor development
Fine Motor Skill Development 

Possum had never used droppers (or pipettes) prior to doing this activity and so I did need to give her some instructions on how it worked. She grasped the idea but struggled to draw up the liquid independently. This simple challenge was resolved by me drawing up the liquid into the droppers for her and then just allowing her to pinch the ends to cause the drips. 

fine motor painting activity for kids. indoors and outdoors

What a wonderful way for children to paint!
So creative and something a little different from using your typical paints. 

beautiful drop painting using food colouring

using dropper pipettes
rainbow colours in dropper painting activity for kids

Outdoor and Indoor Activity

I love that this activity can be easily done outdoors and simple enough to set up when stuck indoors. I would probably suggest having a towels on the floor when inside, to catch any accidental spills.  

using droppers in painting art. Great for fine motor
I can’t recommend this activity enough for children. It was so much fun and I know that it will be done at our place many times in the future. Although it isn’t my own idea, there are many others who have done it before me, it will certainly be one we will repeat in the future. 

Do you think your children would enjoy this creative painting approach? 



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Filed Under: 1 - 3 years, 3 - 5 years, 5 - 10 years, Art, Art & Craft, Fine Motor, Paint Tagged With: fine motor, indoors, learning colours, outdoors, painting

Comments

  1. Anastasia @ Montessori Nature says

    October 28, 2014 at 10:09 am

    we love to do out water activities outside too! Such beautiful photos! This is definitely on our “to-do” list! thank you for sharing! pinned!

    Reply
  2. Sara @ Happiness is here says

    October 28, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    My girls love this too!

    Reply
  3. Kate says

    October 28, 2014 at 2:50 pm

    This is one of our all time, total, absolute, favourite activities! So much fun to do, so much learning, and the results are also beautiful!

    Reply
  4. Kelly says

    November 3, 2014 at 10:14 pm

    I love the vibrancy of the colours and the way they mingle together. My kids would love this too. I imagine water colour paper would also be nice to work with.

    Reply
  5. terisa says

    November 7, 2014 at 10:14 am

    This gives me an idea to try this myself with some watercolor paints on watercolor paper. 🙂

    Reply
    • Kate says

      November 8, 2014 at 4:39 pm

      Terisa this activity was hard for me to resist giving a go too! Enjoy. Thanks for your comment. 🙂

      Reply
  6. AGGIE says

    February 26, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    fab idea! just shared in on our twitter! Thanks a lot:)

    Reply
    • Kate says

      February 27, 2015 at 8:04 am

      Oh how gorgeous you are. Thank you so kindly. 🙂

      Reply
  7. Vivienne says

    March 13, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    This looks great. Where do you get your pipettes from?
    Thanks.

    Reply
    • Kate says

      March 13, 2015 at 11:20 pm

      It’s a wonderful activity Vivienne. You can get the droppers from any craft or dollar store. If you can’t get these ones I’d go to a chemist (drug store) and see if you can get some there. Best of luck. 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

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    July 3, 2015 at 3:02 pm

    […] – Eye dropper painting – My preschooler had so much fun with this eye dropper painting from Laughing Kids Learn that I had to replace his paper towel four […]

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  2. Colour Exploration Kit - Mama.Papa.Bubba. says:
    October 17, 2015 at 6:39 am

    […] Water colours, paper towel, and droppers – walking water experiment, paper towel butterflies, paper towel dip activity, dropper painting […]

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  3. 19 process art ideas for kids: easy to prepare and really fun - Playful Notes says:
    February 27, 2017 at 4:25 am

    […] If you have a dropper and some food coloring at hand, this activity is very easy to prepare and can keep kids busy for a long time. The child will learn about the colors in a playful way and will develop some fine motor skills too. Check out this article for more details: Dropper Painting for Kids. […]

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    August 16, 2019 at 4:05 am

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    May 11, 2022 at 11:23 pm

    […] get tutorial here […]

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Welcome
Hello and welcome!
My name is Kate and I am a mum to two little girls, Possum and Boo. We have lots of fun together learning with play at home and are pleased to share some of what we do with you.
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