Painting with marbles.

If one can stand stepping on a few every now and then, or having to retrieve them from parts of other toys, marbles are a fantastic toy for a three year old- and very versatile.  Yesterday we did some painting with marbles.  It was one of the activities set out when we went to Li's Kindergarten open day and he loved it. 

We had little cups of blue, red and yellow paint with one marble in each and a spoon to scoop them out with.  Then we layed the paper in a plastic dish (like a kitty litter tray) and placed the paint covered marbles in on top.  Li preffered to do one marble at a time but you can do lots together and just agitate the dish so the marbles roll around and make the patterns.  Every once and a while the marble needs to be re-dipped in the paint so it was more of a coordination activity for Li than an art one as he was concentrating on just moving the marble around and getting it in and out with the spoon.  I'm sure that older kids can think more about colours and curves and experiment with different sized marbles and different amounts of paint.  We will definitely have to do this activity again!  If I find a bigger dish I can see some red and gold marble action happening for Christmas wrapping paper.