Masterpiece

I thought that it would be fun to try some painting this weekend before the rush of school starts and all the busy-ness.  So Sophie and I got down to work yesterday and got messy, as did the rug and her chair lol.
I taped down a large piece of paper to cover her tray and then placed the canvas on top of that.
She was curious and thought it was pretty funny to hear the tape ripping.  She helped me put a few foam stickers on the canvas and I just randomly placed some tape on the canvas.

At first I tried to have her hold a little sponge applicator (it is actually a toothette sponge, we used to use them for cleaning Sophie's mouth) I have a thousand of them so it was good recycling lol) but the handle was way to small for her.  So I got out her large handled paint applicator. 

It was much better, but Sophie would toss it right after I let go each time.  In the end I just dipped her hand in the paint, definitely the easiest and Sophie loved the feel of it. She moved her fingers back and forth in the tray, great OT!  I wanted her to do this herself though, so fingers it was.

This is all about active learning and Sophie has a severe vision impairment so I tried to make it very textural for her.  The paint was cold and slimy and we used a bunch of different colours.  I think that Sophie really enjoyed the glitter paint that I put right on her fingers for her to smush around (the glitter also helps catch her eye) and she can feel the foam stickers as she moves her hand around the page. 

Sophie's favourite part might have been helping me pull the tape off when we were done.  It had been a while since we had done some messy painting so I am glad that we made this little effort.  I think her finished painting is quite the masterpiece.