The Dot
Here are our fun, educational and creative activities inspired by The Dot written by Peter H. Reynolds. These activities are all about believing in yourself and the power of encouraging and nurturing others.
Playdough art
This is a simple and fun activity teaching children that anything we make is considered a work of art. My son found the information on the artwork produced by The Art Guys and Howardena Pindell fascinating. It made him really consider that art doesn’t need to be drawn and think about how his playdough art could be appreciated in a different way.
It enabled him to really use his imagination and he created lots of different shapes and animals. The photo is of him creating a turtle.
I have left the spiced ginger playdough and white plate out for him to create more as the mood takes him. You could also add additional coloured playdough and different coloured surfaces to create different art.
Watercolour butterflies
This easy art activity is a great way to practice using watercolour paints. Using watercolours for the first time can take some getting used to for children. In this activity children can explore the water colour paints, the way the colours mix and the way the paint spreads across the paper. My eldest wanted to experiment in her own way on her first attempt and enjoyed creating new shades of colours and creating patterns. Both my children were impressed with their creations.
Art in nature
This was such a fun activity to do together and a wonderful way to talk through what we were creating. This is the tree we created whilst at the seaside but we also have recreated this activity whilst out for a walk in the woods.
art show
This art activity uses what the children have learnt from the previous activities to create a final piece of artwork on the canvas using the watercolours. Rereading the book and seeing how Vashti created amazing art work even though she did not think was able to draw was a great reminder to my children that they could create their own artwork. We also talked about the different types of art work we had looked at through the other activities and how art doesn’t always have to “look like something”. This was a great reminder for my youngest who then started to create. Both my children decide to create a painting inspired by the tree tunnels we go through in the summer. They can’t wait to now hang their finished artwork on the wall!
Ice painting
This was a great way to practice using the watercolour paints. My son usually uses poster paint and paint sticks and he initially found it tricky to wet the brush, add the paint and then paint on the paper. At times he got very frustrated with it all.
It was really good fun but sometimes tricky to get the ice cubes to stay still!!
painting on kitchen roll
Our kitchen roll has these amazing swirls on them which look just like fireworks. It was a great way to again practice using the watercolours and observing the different effects when we used more or less water.
salt painting
This is a really fun experiment to do with your watercolour paints and paintbrush. Together we used PVA glue to create an image on the paper. We then covered the paper with salt, so that the salt stuck to the PVA glue. We then let this dry. Using the watercolour paints and the paintbrush we just dab the salt with the paint rush and watched as the colour dispersed along the salt.
Colour by number
This was a fantastic after school activity and my son happily completed the puzzle whilst I made dinner. I simply drew random lines onto a piece of paper and wrote a number in each hole. I created a key for him to cross reference: IE 1 = red. You could make this harder by writing addition, subtraction or multiplication number sentences in the holes and the answer then tells them what colour to use in each piece.
Secret Messages
Using a white crayon I wrote a simple message on a piece of paper. Using the watercolours, my son had to paint over the paper to reveal the message.
We’ve done this activity every day with us taking it turns to write/draw a different message.
