Painting With Fruit

Today the kids painted with fruit...it was an awesome little activity.  Even though the pictures look like it was a huge mess...it really wasn't all that messy!

Here is what you need:  

• Fruit--I bought a small bag of frozen whole raspberries and one small frozen bag of whole blueberries.  You want to be sure they are not in syrup or any extra juices. 
• Paper... You could tape down a few pieces to the table covering.  We got this super cool table top paper roll at Christmas it works great for both kiddos working at once!
• I also always have those cheap plastic table covers on hand for projects such as these...you can get them at the Dollar Tree or after Holiday sales!  When the project is over you can just pitch the table cover...or wipe it down and use it again if the mess is not too crazy!
• The last thing that is a necessity is some sort of smock for the kiddos...We have these Bumkins long sleeved bibs that work great for all sorts of messy things...but you could always take a plastic trash bag and make a poncho out of it by cutting holes in it for arms and head Just REALLY watch them with these as they could be a choking or suffocating hazard.  Or you could just strip them down and take baths after...

 

 We talked about the different colors that came from each fruit....

 ...and how we could make straight lines or curvy lines.  We dropped the fruit onto the paper to see what it would do...it made cool SPLAT marks.  We also tried to roll the raspberries to make a bumpy dotted pattern...it worked kind of.  We talked about how the raspberries had seeds in them and the blueberries were smooth inside when we squished them.

 It surprised me that Rylan (20 months old) was way more into painting than Hayden (3.5).  Hayden ate most the time.

But she did wonder what it would be like to paint with an orange...so we tried, but she decided it didn't work as well as the raspberries and blueberries.

 We talked about how the more we squished the fruit, the more juice came out and the darker our "paint" became.

 Hayden eventually got into the painting process...

I am letting the artwork dry and then I will see if there are any frame-able pieces of artwork!