We had so much fun painting with hands and fingers this week. Hand painting idea was in response to the children's needs and interest in various sensory oriented activities. Since we noticed many children enjoyed touching different textures, such as shaving cream, water play, and play dough making in our classroom, we decided to set up the table just for hand painting.
Hand painting activities cultivated many skills and development in children: Large motor skill, Sensory awareness, Creativity, Cognitive, Language and Social emotional. As educators, our focus of art activities is not the final product, but the process of children's play. Reflective and active ongoing engagement with children allows us to discover their thinking and learning process.
Throughout the process I asked open-ended questions such as, how do you feel in your hands? What do you see? The children were very quiet in the beginning, as if they were absorbing the moments and the feelings of the paints in their hands. Some used only finger tips and some dived in with two hands right away. A child described the experience "gooey," and another said, "cold". Some children noticed how red and blue colors mixed and changed the hues to purple. It was interesting to see their reactions to and interactions with this new experience. Each was unique, and equally expressing his/her own way of perception of the art. It was truly our version of Hundred Languages of Children!