It’s time for another edition of Paint and Play! Some of my favorite bloggers, Crystal from Growing a Jeweled Rose and Suja from Blog Me Mom, are joining me as we explore fun ways to use paint. This week we will be sharing our ideas for combining math and art. We made DIY Shape Stickers out of contact paper and paint and used them to create art. We love contact paper here at Mess for Less. We have used it to create Contact Paper Art and a Fall Tree with Suncatcher Leaves. Read on to see how we used it today.
If you would like to purchase the supplies we used, affiliate links are provided at the end of this post.
You will need:
- Clear contact paper
- Acrylic paint
- Scissors
- Permanent marker
- Brushes
- Wax Paper
- Scotch Tape
- Large white construction paper
My daughter and I talked about shapes and I had her tell me all the shapes she knew. We discussed the similarities and differences between the shapes and how many sides they each had. I drew the shapes she said on some contact paper with a permanent marker. Make sure to draw on the side of contact paper that has no writing on it. I originally tried this with a thin permanent marker (as shown in the photo above) but it got completely obscured by the paint, so I tried a thick permanent marker which worked a lot better.
Squirt some acrylic paint in a palette or paper plate. I prefer acrylic over tempera paints because when it dries, it does not crack like tempera paint. We used a water based acrylic which we have been able to wash off our skin and clothes.
Tape the contact paper to the table so it does not roll up or move. Provide your child with a brush and have them paint the shapes.
My daughter had so much fun with this that she insisted on painting multiple sheets of contact paper to make lots of stickers. Here are a few of her attempts.
Originally I thought she would just paint the shapes I drew, but she was so into the process that she ended up painting the entire sheet!
When the paint dries, it’s time for an adult to cut out the shapes. If you turn the contact paper over, you can still see the shape outlines on the back which will help to guide your cutting.
When you are done cutting out the shapes, peel the paper off the back and stick your stickers on a piece of wax paper. The wax paper makes it easy for kids to remove the stickers.
Provide your child with a large piece of construction paper that they can use to create an artistic masterpiece with their painted stickers. You child may choose to place the shape stickers on random places on the page to create abstract art or use the shapes to make a scene or picture.
When my daughter saw the circles she immediately decided that she would make a truck.
She used the squares to make the body of the truck.
All done! She was especially proud of the rectangle at the end which she says is “where the smoke comes from.”
Since these stickers are made from contact paper, they are easy to remove and re-place on a paper. This is great for children, as they can experiment with the shapes in different configurations and change whatever they are not satisfied with.
What is your favorite use for contact paper?
For more fun Math Paint and Play ideas check out:
Ohhh what a fantastic idea!! Will definitely be trying that at some point x
Thanks Charlotte! We always keep some contact paper on hand so it was nice to already have all the supplies.
Love how this turned out! Thanks for sharing an awesome idea.
Thanks so much Anna! We had lots of fun with them.
These look great! I particularly like the idea of putting the contact paper stickers on wax paper for easy removal.
The great thing about contact paper is that it's not terribly sticky so this worked well. Thanks for stopping by!
What a great activity, Vicky! Thanks so much for the inspiration – my daughter adores stickers, but she often has trouble peeling the backing off herself. This would be a great solution for her!
Thank you Katie! I think this should work perfectly for her.
This is so cute I love this idea. I usually tape it to the table and give my son different shapes and he practices his letters check out he pictures on my blog http://teachermomplus3.blogspot.ca/2013/10/letter-of-week.html
Ayan, I liked how you made letters on the contact paper using shapes. Clever!
This is cool, it would go well with looking at Eric Carl paste paper illustrations as well.