13 Non-Traditional Art Supplies for Preschoolers

By traditional art supplies I mean items that can be bought at the art & stationary section of the store, which we have stocked up at all times: drawing sheets, brushes, roller brushes, sponge brushes, glue, colored glue, child safe scissors, palettes, bowls, paint containers, droppers, beakers, clips or tape to hold down the paper on the table and easel, sharpeners, erasers, crayons, color pencils, chalks, water color cakes, PAINT, PAINT and MORE PAINT.

By 'non-traditional' I mean supplies that aren't kept at the 'Art' or 'Stationary' aisles, but are perhaps available in your kitchen, garden or medicine cabinet! The following 13 are tried and tested material used by my little 3 year old in various interesting ways!

Straws  |  Oil  |  Ice  | Shaving Cream & Snow Spray 

Leaves, Pebbles, Potatoes, Lemons  |  Flour & Powdered Milk  

 Yarn  |  Baking Soda & Vinegar | Cotton Swabs  

  Salt & Glue | Sugar Cubes  |  Cornstarch  |  Vaseline

(The links are right above the images)

Eno Explosion

I *really* wanted to make a lava lamp, but the only giant beaker type thing I have is a Sangria Jar, and I *really* didn't want it to get all mucky with oil. We also didn't have Alka-Seltzer tablets. So what we did was kinna halfway there.

Fizzy Word Building

We just recently started learning word formation, i.e. M-A-T is Mat and so on. He got the concept, but it wasn't as exciting as learning sight words (he ie *obsessed* with the 7 sight words he knows!). So I brought out the big guns, his *favorite* baking soda and vinegar!

Vaseline Resist Art

My kid lo..oves vaseline, lotions, creams. When I asked him to dip his finger in vaseline and rub it over paper he was quite intrigued. Although after a coupla rubs he was like "we cannot even see it! why are we doing this!" hehe. Er, the point is, when you paint over it, you create resist art, as vaseline doesn't mix with paint!

Easter Egg Activity: with Melted Crayons & Markers

Crayons aren't my kids favorite. So although I thought this would be fun, he was done with coloring just one egg!

 

Took out boiled egg from the hot pan and placed it on the carton so he wouldn't have to touch it. He then colored it with a few wax crayons, as soon as they touched the hot egg, they melted a bit giving a beautiful result.

Easter Eggs Marbling: with Nail Polish: Kids Activity

We *loo..oved* marbling eggs with paint and oil and thought this variation of marbling 'em with nail polish would be fun for a kids activity!

 

It wasn't.

Marbling Paper

Right after we tried marbling eggs, we tried marbling paper with colorful origami paper (these pre cut squares are a life saviour! Saves me cutting from large crepe/ kite/ chart paper).

Easter Activity: Marbled Eggs

I've been wanting to marble eggs and paper ever since I got to know of the concept! Easter being just around the corner, we boiled 6 eggs. And brought out paints, water and oil.

5 Rainbows in 5 Days Project!

My son jumped into pinterest's rainbow bandwagon! He peeped into my phone not once but on several occasions, pointing to rainbows saying "let's do this!" Lol. Maybe I'll just open a pinterest account for him to find kids activities and save me the effort!

These are 5 Rainbows made 5 days in a row, with Salt & Glue, Scrap Paper, Yarn, Felt & Nail Polish. They each took hardly any time to prepare (and a loooong time to conduct!) so we were good to go!

Fizzy Sight Words

My kids currently in the 'in between' phase of being thorough with his ABCs, and word formation i.e. M-A-T is Mat. While we are busy practising rhyming words and syllable counting, I thought why not introduce some sight words! I taught him 4 over a month, and he could not have been more excited!

I've just started using a craft stick as a pointer when we read, as he loo..oves being part of the narration. The 4 words The, And, A and To, are generously sprinkled in every page of every book. So I restrict pointing to just 1 or 2 books a day! 

 

We combined sight words with fizzy science on a saturday morning. Placed a few of his playdoh cutters to arrange them into sight words over a tray. He put some baking soda inside each alphabet. Then he mixed paint (Orange was his color of the day!) with vinegar in his beaker and poured the mix into a spraying bottle.

Math Activities: Weights, Lengths, Shapes, Time

We were doing connect the dots to make a picture and while he connected the first 20 dots quickly, he paused and looked up when it came to 21. So I urged him, this is 21, 22.... and realised that learning counting beyond 20 is actually the easy part! He picked up the general concept and can now count up 50 and even beyond! Hence it was time to slowly introduce him to weights, lengths and telling the time. These activities take almost no prep time.

Kids Art: Painting with 'Popsicles'

Well, they aren't technically popsicles. At least not edible ones! We just froze some colored water in ice cube trays and inserted a straw in each well before putting it in the freezer.

The next day we had colorful popsicles! And he painted many sheets with them!

DIY Magnetic Fishing Game

We had done a bit of painting with and chasing magnets a few days back so I decided to explore some more. I already had colored rice and beans in his sensory bin so the rest took about ten minutes to set up.

Freezing & Melting Colored Ice with Buttons (& My 3 Big Rules for Paint Mess)

My 3 year old and I, together put one pumpkin, apple or ladybug shaped button into each ice cube well, and topped it up colored water to freeze overnight. The next day we shook out the ice cubes into a tray. He quickly brought out the salt - as salt melts the ice faster. As the ice melted, he finally got back all the buttons!

Fizzy Hearts & Stars: Baking Soda & Vinegar Experiment!

I'd written about our first Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment we had conducted. It went so well that I always have a ready supply of the ingredients at home! Bring out the cups and we can spend an hour well.

 

This time we used a few hearts and stars mouldings to freeze a mixture of baking soda, paint and water overnight. He's 3 years 2 months old - hence now patient to the concept of freezing overnight ,I.e waiting till next morning to play! Very grown up compared to out first ice activity when he insisted on taking out the tray from the freezer - every ten minutes!!

Planting Seeds with Kids (& Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed)

It's ironic that I know nothing of gardening. I mean I grew up in a big house with a huge garden, with lawn grass, a guava tree orchard, a kitchen garden, a rose garden , a mulberry trees, mango trees and probably over 200 potted plants. But nope, plants just don't seem to survive under my care!

When I wanted some plants in our balcony (since that's the area we use for my kid's art and science activities) I realised I could hire a gardener to keep track and make sure all plants are alive & thriving. I have only 20 pots, but he comes in twice a month to loosen the soil, trim plants, put medicine or fertilizer if required, all of which is done within fifteen mintues. Seems pretty quick and easy too. But I so need him!

Magnets: Preschooler Science & Art Activity

Well he's already familiar with the concept, with fridge magnets and magnetic alphabets. But this activity was sorta formally explaining it.

Paint on Salt & Ice: a Preschooler Science + Art Activity

I filled up a coupla pots and pans of various shapes and sizes with water to freeze overnight. In the morning, I tapped out a big hunk of ice from one of them and laid it on a tray, along with a bowl of salt. Then we sprinkled lots of salt over ice- to bore holes in the hunk. The hole boring takes time, but we got going with droppers and colored water right away!

 

This activity kept him busy for a few hours (in and out) as the ice doesn't melt away that quickly (inspite of direct sunlight). Once he was kinna bored with a hunk, I tapped out another, of a different shape and size!

 

This activity taught him that water freezes into ice in the freezer and then melts into water in the sun. It taught him salt bores holes in the ice. It taught him about mixing colors esp pink and blue make purple. He got a ton of fine motor practice transferring colored water with droppers. And it taught me to let go of my obsession with maximum aperture (I love light!) and blurry effects and let the sun do some talking for a change.

Baking Soda & Vinegar Concoction - Science Experiment for Preschoolers!

Adding ANYTHING to paint makes it twice as fun. And adding it to a baking soda and vinegar Concoction resulting in a bubbling eruption can guarantee squeals of laughter and excitement!

We mixed a dollop of tempera paint with two teaspoons baking soda in each of the disposable plastic cups, arranged on a tray. In a beaker we poured some vinegar and few squirts of kitchen cleaner (to add a 'bubbly' effect). Then all he had to do was pour the vinegar into the plastic cups and voila! What happens is NaHCO3 + HC2H3O2 → NaC2H3O2 + H2O + CO2. (Or whatever that means!)