Preschool Painted Apple Garland

Inside: Put together a preschool painted apple garland using a salad spinner. A wonderful addition to the fall classroom decor!

We love spin art. Wait, that’s an understatement. We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE spin art! Yes, that much.

Whenever I set the salad spinners on the art table, the children just light up.

And it’s pretty obvious we love spin art when you see how many spin art activities are on this website.

Here are some:

• Color-Mixing Spin Art
• Pumpkin Spin Art
• Spin Art Hearts

And you think spin art is just for paper?

Think again!

We’ve done spin art with wooden snowmen and plastic Easter eggs!

We are now in the middle of our apple theme, so I recalled the spin art apples we did last year.

I wanted to do the same process again, but this time turn them into a garland to decorate our classroom.

That’s when I came up with this painted apple garland! 

Preschool Painted Apple Garland

Watch the Video

Supplies

• Salad Spinner
• Red tempera paint
• Green tempera paint
• Yellow tempera paint
• Hole punch
• Brads
• Apple shaped paper (I have a free printable towards the bottom of this post.)

Set Up

Have at least one apple-shaped piece of paper per child.

Just a warning: if your children love this as much as mine have, you will want extras!

I’ve found it easiest to have the paint in plastic squeeze bottles, such as these.

Place salad spinner(s) at the art table along with paint and apple shaped paper.

A Note About My Favorite Salad Spinner

I’ve tried many different brands, and my absolute favorite is the OXO salad spinner. The reasons:

• The entire unit is clear, so you can see the paint mixing around. This is what makes it exciting!
• It’s easy to use, even with my two year olds.
• It has a press button to stop the spinner, and this is very exciting for the children.
• It’s sturdy.

I know it is more expensive than some of the others, but it’s worth it.

However, you could hit the jackpot like I did and find one at a thrift store for a few dollars! (That was the highlight of the week, let me tell you!)

We have two OXO spinners now and we just have the children take turns using it. I’d love another one! 

Step One: Painting the Apples

Place a paper apple inside the salad spinner.

Squeeze paint on top of the apple. Place lid on top and make the spinner move!

If this is your children’s first time doing spin art, show them how to do each step.

It won’t take long for them to be able to most or all of it without help.

Even our two year olds catch on quickly!