With all the rainy weather this month, it is the perfect time for some fun rainbow activities. We love rainbows at our house and decided to combine them with another one of our favorite activities – salt art for preschool. If you have never tried salt painting before, it is a different way to experiment with paint and produces some beautiful textured art. We have used salt for our Dripping Salt Painting and Black Glue and Salt Leaves. We recently made a Black Glue and Salt Watercolor Rainbow. I am in love with the vibrant, textured rainbows we created, and am excited to share how your kids can create them as well.
You will need:
- Salt
- White glue
- Black paint
- Watercolors
- Pencil
- White paper
Salt Painting
To make black glue, empty your glue bottle so it’s only half full. Then add some squirts of black paint. Use enough black paint to fill up an additional quarter of the glue bottle. Shake the mixture until it is totally combined.
Draw a rainbow on a sheet of white paper and outline it with the black glue. Let this dry for a few hours until the glue has hardened to the touch.
Now it’s time to start painting. If you have younger kids who have trouble remembering the colors of the rainbow, you can paint a dot of the correct color into each section so they can follow along.
My kids were careful to stay within the lines of black glue, but I think having the colors blend would look great too.
Make sure your painting is fairly wet before adding salt. If parts of it have dried already, have your child go over it again with a wet brush.
Next, add your salt. A shaker works great here so that kids can shake the salt on themselves.
Leave the salt on until the painting dries and then you can shake off the excess.
You will be left with a vibrant rainbow painting which has a sandy texture. If you are looking for rainbow activities, this is one that will brighten up any rainy day.
Some of my favorite bloggers have fun salt painting activities as well. Check out Salt Painting at Powerful Mothering and The Magic of Salt Painting at Artsy Momma.
If you are looking for more fun ways to engage your kids, I highly recommend KiwiCo. As a former teacher, I was really impressed with the quality of materials found in KiwiCo. Some moms have told me that they want to do activities like I do on Mess For Less with their kids, but they just don’t have to the time to go buy all the supplies and prepare them for the activity. KiwiCo is the perfect solution. Every month your KiwiCo will focus on a particular theme like Colors, Dinosaurs or Gardening. KiwiCo offer a variety of projects ranging from crafts, imaginative play, science experiments and more.
If you liked this salt painting, check out:
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Mama D says
What a lovely craft!
Jodi Durr says
What a great activity, Vicky. I love it. I don't think I've seen this technique before. The kids would so enjoy it. Thanks!
Ashley says
Thank you so much for posting this! I was just asking the craft store in town today for black glue; they looked at me really weird too. Hooray!
Diana - FreeStyleMama says
My daughter LOVES water colors and we will have to try this!
Savannah McQueen says
How create and I love that it only involves simple ingredients. I hope you'll consider sharing this at Look What We Did, a month long link up hosted by HammockTracks. -Savannah @ HammockTracks
Beth says
Great idea!
Stephanie VanTassell says
I love this craft. I would love it if you would post this on my Money Saving Monday Link Up.
Jennifer Hughes says
Visiting from the Pin It Party. My Family-Focused Monday hop is live now and I would love to see one of your awesome posts linked up @ http://www.mondaykidcorner.blogspot.com.
Have a wonderful week.
Diana - FreeStyleMama says
Congratulations! This post is featured over at Diana Rambles today and has been pinned in the Featured at Diana Rambles board at Pinterest. Please grab a featured button off my sidebar or via the link under the features. Thanks for sharing this awesome idea!
Anna says
Such a beautiful project! Thanks so much for sharing at After School.