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    Home » Painting Activities

    Kids Art Project: Q-Tip Star Art

    Modified: May 25, 2022 · Published: Oct 29, 2014 by Vicky · This post may contain affiliate links · 1 Comment

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    I love it when a kid's art project doubles as a fine motor activity, like this Q-Tip Star Art. Painting with Q-tips is a fun way for kids to experiment with art and strengthen their small hand muscles at the same time.

    You can learn How to Dye Q-Tips and practice Q-Tips and Straws Fine Motor Skills for an extension to this activity.

    Kids Art Project - Q-Tip Star Art: A creative way for kids to paint with a q-tip. This also provides a fun fine motor experience for kids. What a fun way to paint!

    You will need:

    • Black construction paper
    • White crayon or white colored pencil
    • Yellow and white paint
    • Small cups for paint
    • Star template (at the bottom of this post)
    • Scissors
    • 2 q-tips
    kids art project supplies

    Once you print out our free star template, (just one of our many free printables and worksheets) cut out the stars and trace them onto black construction paper. The easiest way to do this is with a white crayon or white colored pencil. Trace as many as you'd like. I've included a few different sizes. My kids would have had a hard time with this step, so I did it myself.

    Add a few squirts of white and yellow paint to small cups. Give your child the paper with the stars, the paint cups and provide a q-tip for each cup. I demonstrated how my kids could use the q-tip to create dot painted stars. Your child might just use the q-tip as a paint brush and not paint dots. That's fine too. It's about process over product.

    painting with a q-tip

    My four year old started by dotting the outline of the star with her painted q-tip.

    q-tip painting kids art project

    Once the outline had been painted, my daughter filled in the rest using dots of paint.

    painting stars

    Dot painting with a q-tip requires a level of fine motor control. I was surprised to see my daughter holding her q-tip in a different manner than she grips her pencil, but holding it this way gave her more control over her painting.

    kids painting

    This kids art project would be a great addition to a space study or unit. My kids just had fun painting in a new way!

    Q-Tip Star Art - A fun kids art project!

    For more kids art projects with q-tips check out:

    Contact Paper Crafts with Q-Tips                 

    Painting a Q-Tip Fall Tree

    printables terms and conditions

    Free
    Star
    Template

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        Recipe Rating




      1. Heather A says

        January 20, 2015 at 4:33 pm

        What a fun and simple idea for the kids to enjoy! Pinned and sharing on Facebook this week 🙂

        Reply
      Vicky from Mess for Less

      I'm Vicky, the founder of Mess For Less, which I started in 2011 to share easy, family-friendly recipes. With over a decade of experience as a home chef and recipe developer, I love creating meals that bring people together. I also design play and learning activities for kids, using my background as a former teacher with a Master’s degree in education. Learn more about me.

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