Dr. Seuss Week: My Many Colored Days Craft

I have been thinking about Kingston's first finger painting for awhile. When I was an infant teacher, I painted with babies as young as six-eight weeks. K is 5 months and has yet to actually touch paint. Since our project today had to do with colors, I figured today was as good a day as any other! Today we read the Dr. Seuss book My Many Colored Days and did a little mixed media artwork with ink and paint to go with it! 

I love this book! I feel like it is one of his less well-known books, but it is such a good read for babies and toddlers! The book talks about emotions by relating them to colors and animals. Since Kingston is too young to really understand the concept of emotions, I focused on the simplest ones: happy, sad, and mad. I said the words and made the corresponding faces before he stamped and painted. 

I was smarter this time and taped the paper down on all four sides with masking tape (although it did rip it a little when I pulled it off so I'm going to try a different tape next time). First I inked each hand with a different color and let him go wild, slapping the paper and the high chair. After each color, I wiped his hand with a baby wipe and inked a different color. The last color we did was black. We used an ink pad that we have used before with success and the ink would NOT come off of his hand!! I tried cleaning it with everything and it would only fade to a grayish color (it has since worn off completely!). Make sure you test the brand of ink pad on one of your own fingers before committing to the entire hand like I did! 

Then came the paint! We did yellow and orange because they were the only color ink pads I didn't have. I imagined he would attack the paint and go wild, but he just stared at it for a few minutes. I ran his fingers through it and then he started slapping the paper (painting) with the multiple paint colors. 

I was very proud of his finished project! It is completely true that everything your child makes is a masterpiece in your eyes. I am planning on starting a binder to put all of his projects in. I already have a stack waiting to be filed!

This project could also be adapted for a preschooler who would be more adept at grasping the concepts of the different feelings. They could paint the corresponding color on their paper as you read the book. Afterwards, you could discuss the different emotions and have the child relate a life situation to each one!

Let us know in the comments if you do this craft with your little Seussian!