House of Burke: Pre-Writing and Painting with Carrots

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Happy Fine Motor Fridays! If you are a long time reader of our little blog, you might have caught on that we have a thing about carrots. The funny thing is, I don't even like carrots. Well, not really. It's probably one of the main reasons why we are always using them for crafts and projects: I typically buy a bag and let it rot in the back of the refrigerator!

Back when our blog was just a baby, little baby Kingston did a Painting with Carrots project. With Kingston working on pre-writing skills, and Bentley at the same age as K was back then, I wanted to revisit that activity and tweak it a bit to fit both boys!

We have been working a lot lately on drawing straight lines and making circles. We have a giant preschool workbook that was passed on to us from a family friend, and a lot of the activities require lines to be drawn and items to be circled. So, this is a basic skill that we have been focusing on. For this activity, I provided K with a carrot (I chose one that I thought most resembled a writing utensil!), washable orange paint , and a piece of white cardstock.

Using a little bit of paint on the carrot, I drew a faint straight line. Then, Kingston dipped the carrot in paint and traced over the straight line. Anytime the carrot ran out of paint, he would dip it back in again and finish the rest of the line. Then, I made him a second line, even fainter than the first. He traced over that one even more fluidly.

Then I encouraged him to make his own straight line. I was really impressed with him, and he was thrilled with himself! I love toddler pride. It is precious!

Then I modeled a circle for him and let him trace it. We practiced making several more circles. When he was done, I gave him a new piece of paper and let him paint freely with the carrot and his hands.

While Kingston painted, I worked with Bentley who was in the high chair. I taped a piece of cardstock down for him and handed him the carrot to explore. He put it immediately in his mouth to explore it. Bentley is 100% my mouthing baby. He is certainly going to be more of a challenge with art projects than Kingston ever was! K hardly ever mouthed anything. I used to constantly get the question, "How do you do that with him?" Well now I understand! It will be interesting adapting our future crafts for my "taste-testing" baby!

I put some red and yellow washable fingerpaint on B's paper and he watched as I mixed the two together to make orange. He didn't hesitate to reach in and help me mix the two colors. Then I handed him back the carrot and showed him how to paint. He waved it around a bit, gave it another taste, and rolled it on the paper. Most of his painting happened when he was trying to get the carrot back into his mouth! When he was done, I cleaned him up and gave him a new carrot to chew on. Bentley still has no teeth, so the cold carrot gave him some natural teething relief!