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You are here: Home / Art / Preschool Painting Activity with Salt, Glue and Watercolors

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Preschool Painting Activity with Salt, Glue and Watercolors

December 19, 2016 by Sheryl Cooper

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Inside: This preschool painting activity is like science at the art table! See what happens as the salt is sprinkled on the glue, and then paint is dropped on top. So much fun!

I love to strengthen fine motor skills at the art table, so this is why salt and watercolor painting is one of my favorites for our preschoolers.

I’ve talked about pipettes before, such as with our pine cone art and our colored waterfall art.

What I love about this particular activity is that the salt allows the colors to travel.

When you add different colors, you can see them mix in the salt.

Science, fine motor, AND art!

Salt and Watercolor Art
 Salt and Watercolor Painting

 

Preschool Painting Activity with Salt, Glue and Watercolors

 

What we used:

 

  • Pipettes
  • Liquid watercolors
  • White glue
  • Paper


Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

 

The process:

 

Squeeze glue onto paper. We talked about how the glue was “dancing”.

 

 
Then, spoon salt on top of the glue.

 

Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

You can also shake the salt. This is a fun activity by itself!

 
Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

 

Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

 

Shake off the excess salt.

 

Applying the watercolors:

 

Use the pipettes to transfer the liquid watercolors on top of the salt.
Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

There are always those that want to use 2 pipettes at a time, too!

 

Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

As the salt absorbs the paint, and they both mix with the glue, an interesting texture appears.

 Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Some of the preschoolers poked and pulled at the mixture, finding the feeling fascinating.

 Salt and Watercolor Painting - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

 

When finished, let thoroughly dry. Some of the salt might flake off if there was not enough glue. I made sure to shake each one over the garbage can before sending them home, so that the excess was removed.

 

Exploring Science and Art with Salt, Glue, and Watercolors - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

 

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Filed Under: Art, preschool, Preschool Science, Science Tagged With: art, fine motor, preschool

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Teresa e Helena

    January 15, 2012 at 12:39 am

    I´m a kindergarden teacher in Portugal. So beautiful this salt painting! Thanks for sharing…I´ll try with my children. See our blog Pré Azul http://preazul.blogspot.com/
    Bj Teresa Rebelo

    • Sheryl @ Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

      January 15, 2012 at 2:47 am

      Thank you! I just followed you to your website!

  2. ReeneeRaaid

    January 15, 2012 at 1:09 am

    Hello there. I’m your new follower from Malaysia. I found your blog link from learningandteachingwithpreschoolers.blogspot.com Many thanks for sharing interesting info. I really enjoy reading your blog 😉

    From,
    reeneeraaid.blogspot.com

    • Sheryl @ Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

      January 15, 2012 at 2:44 am

      Nice to meet you, Renee! Happy you’re here!

  3. Jill @ A Mom With A Lesson Plan

    January 16, 2012 at 4:36 am

    I adore this idea! Can’t wait to try it with M and M!

  4. Kristina

    January 16, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    This looks like so much fun! I don’t think we’ve done this before. Thanks for sharing!

  5. Messy Kids

    January 16, 2012 at 7:38 pm

    Love it! Thanks for sharing on It’s Playtime.

  6. Kimira Curic

    January 17, 2012 at 2:38 am

    Nice. We did something similar once with colored salt, but yours look so much more “finished”

  7. MiaB

    January 17, 2012 at 4:33 am

    LOVE this activity… my little one would love this.. thanks so much for sharing this with us on Sharing Saturday. hope that you have a great week. Looking forward to seeing more of your posts.

    ~MiaB
    http://www.mamamiasheart2heart.com

  8. Tandyh

    February 6, 2012 at 5:05 pm

    For the past 17 years I have enjoyed the 2 yr old class at MDO. They are absolutely delightful!! It’s pure joy the two days a week I get to be with them. Thank you for sharing your blog. I am not there yet Maybe someday I will have a blog. Love this idea

  9. painter in phoenix

    February 22, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    I ran into this page mistakenly, surprisingly, this is a great website.The site owner has carried out a superb job of putting it together, the info here is really insightful. Now i am going to bookmark this internet site so that I can revisit in the future Jobs.

  10. Anonymous

    April 3, 2012 at 6:41 pm

    Love this website and all the ideas! We tried this activity and it came out great – thank you!

  11. Anonymous

    May 18, 2012 at 11:25 pm

    Love this idea for my 2’s class! I just found you a couple weeks ago. We tried the golf ball painting and both of my classes loved it! Our school year ended this week, so now I am going to pouring over all your older posts and be ready for lots of fun fun fun in September! Thank you for sharing your wonderful ideas. Amazing stuff, teacher! 🙂 Laura from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

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