Paint with Tangram

I have this *gorgeous* set of colorful tangram puzzle pieces. Long time ago, when I first bought this set, I had made a simple train puzzle on a cardboard sheet. (I'd made some more sheets for the smaller pieces, you can see them here). That board was tossed in the garbage long time ago, as my kid wasn't particularly fascinated by the set in the first place. As random play as loose parts? yes! But putting them together to create a pattern? no! 

My mantra to make *anything* interesting is adding paint! (I'm guessing I'll be doing that to teach him division, multiplication, history and geography too!) 

What's cool is that these puzzle pieces are made of plastic, so any amount of tempera paint sprayed over it can be washed off even days after drying. He *can* put them together to form houses and trains though. So thats what we did. And before he moved on to something else, I pulled out the spray bottles and sprayed over them to make fabulous silhouettes! We. love. spray. paint!

This served as a drawing prompt too- as he then grabbed a marker and casually added doors, chimneys etc. He tried it the other way around too! First made his drawings, or writings (his name , cat, mat etc) and spray painted tangram silhouettes over them to add a final touch! And even made silhouettes over dry paintings that already had some paint sprayed over it!

Materials Reqd: Tangram pieces, Buttons or Pebbles for round shapes, Spray Bottles, Paint, Markers & Paper, and an Apron - as the paint can spray all over!

DIY Tangram Train Puzzle!

Step 1: Arrange the Tangram Pieces Step 2: Spray some!

Step 3: Carefully remove the Tangram Pieces and allow paint to dry

Step 4: The canvas now serves as a drawing prompt! Draw doors, windows, chimneys  for houses!

So within a few minutes you can have a finished product!

Why just houses, when you can spray paint silhouettes of clouds, sun & trees too!

Simple Flowers. Made him draw a circle first, so he could arrange the Tangram Pieces around it with ease. He then drew the stem & outlined the petals. 

Pebble Catterpillar! He drew the legs, eye and antennae 

That was him, nana & nani & me! Why not add some silhouettes too!

He figured how to write M! so here's his name, albeit not in one line! 

We were experimenting with painting on cardboard. "Cat" is his fave  word to write these days!

A sheet with dried spray paint already on it (vertical easel). Added some silhouettes 

Until later! Stay in touch!

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