Tips for Painting with a Toddler or a Preschooler

Are you the parent of a toddler or a preschooler? If you are, there is a good chance that your toddler or preschooler enjoys doing fun craft projects. While craft projects come in a number of different formats, you will find that many of them involve paint. This paint most commonly includes poster paint or paint designed specifically for children, but not necessarily water color paint. What does this mean for you? For most parents, it means a large mess to clean up afterwards, but it doesn't always have to be that way.

When it comes to doing preschool crafts with your toddler or preschooler, namely those that involve paint, there are a number of different steps that you can take to make the whole process, namely the cleanup process, a lot easier. One of those steps involves an art smock. Art smocks come in a number of different formats; however, I have found that the best ones are not cloth. If you purchase plastic or vinyl art smocks, you can easily rinse them off and they are back to being like-new. Art smocks can significantly reduce the amount of clothing that has paint on it or reduce the amount of paint on your child and their skin. This makes cleanup much easier, not only on you, but for your child as well.

Another one of the many ways that you can go about reducing the mess often associated with painting, preschoolers, and toddlers, is by laying down newspapers or paper towels in the area in which they will be working. This is ideal if your toddler or preschooler has yet to effectively master painting. Any spills or slips of the paintbrush should result in a paper towel or a newspaper being painted, not your kitchen table. It is also important to mention after cleanup care. When using paper towels or newspapers, when letting your toddler or preschooler paint, you can simply pick them up and toss them in the trash.

In addition to messy spills, you may also be concerned with the wasting of paint. While poster paint and kids paint is relatively affordable, the costs can add up overtime. To prevent large messy spills and to conserve your paint, you may want to place a few drops of each paint color on a paper plate. What you will want to do is simply refill the paint on the paper plate when your child asks for more. Like using paper towels and newspapers, you can simply toss the paper plate and any unused paint portions in the garbage as soon as your child has finished their craft project.

The above mentioned tips are just a few of the many ways that you can go about reducing the mess that needs to be cleaned up, as well as conserve paint, when allowing your toddler or preschooler to use paints with a craft project. It may also be a good idea to keep Mr. Clean Magic Erasers handy, just in case.