Bouncy Ball Sensory Bag Painting

Keeping with our Baby-School "Having a Ball" theme, I thought it would be fun to incorporate some appropriate painting projects. Kingston loves to paint especially with unconventional materials, so I came up with this activity.

The materials you will need for this project are a plastic zip top bag, a piece of white cardstock, washable fingerpaint (we chose blue!), and bouncy balls. I got these bouncy balls at the Dollar Tree yesterday. I scoured the entire store and thought it was hopeless until I stumbled upon these fun bouncy balls in the party favor section!

Simply put the piece of paper inside of the bag, squeeze a small amount of blue paint on top of the cardstock, and add your bouncy balls. Do not add to much blue paint or you will just have a big blue scavenger hunt to find the missing bouncy balls. We did this twice because the first time I put too much paint in. Kingston still enjoyed finding the balls in the paint, but it didn't make anything much besides a big mess. The objective of this project is to let baby move the balls around by shaking or rolling, therefore creating tracks and markings made by the balls themselves. This is definitely a good activity for exercising those fine motor skills! Make sure you seal the bag to ensure that the mess is kept contained and as always, monitor your child while they explore this sensory activity as the bouncy balls could pose a choking hazard if your child was able to open the bag!

Kingston was really into this project! Like I said, we did it twice and both times it held his interest. When I gave him the bag, he grabbed it right away and started examining it. I pointed out the balls and their colors: green, blue, and yellow. Then I let him explore it on his own. Instead of crumpling it and chewing it like he usually does, he lay it flat on his blanket and began moving the balls around in the paint. I was so thrilled that he understood the concept and actually did the project as intended! Not once did he try to put the bag in his mouth. My little monkey is growing up!

He rolled the balls around the cardstock using his palms and his little fingers. He also tried to use his pincer grasp to pick up the small balls. Some of the time he tried fingerpainting with just his hands through the bag. He rotated between putting the bag on the floor to explore and shaking the bag up and down.

After awhile, he began to get wild with it and so he didn't rip or ruin his picture, I took the cardstock out of the bag and handed him back the plastic bag with the bouncy balls and leftover paint to play with. This held his attention for a little while. When he was done, I washed the paint off of the bouncy balls and they were ready to be used for another project or activity!

The outcome was really cool!!