Last Updated on September 7, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper
Inside: Kick off your fall theme with this spin art apple craft. Toddlers and preschoolers love it because of all the action involved, from squeezing the paint to making the salad spinner go around and around. A favorite in our classroom!
Spin art is a favorite with children of all ages!
There’s something about squeezing paint onto paper, putting on the lid, and making the spinner move quickly.
You can use this technique any time of the year, just changing the shape of the paper.
Here are some favorites:
Once children are shown how to work the salad spinner, they won’t want to stop. It’s that fun!
We like to kick off fall with the apple theme.
After setting up our classroom, I get out my planner and think of fun, hands-on ideas for all of our free-choice centers time.
Since we love spin-art so much, I created a simple outline that could easily be downloaded and printed, fitting nicely inside most salad spinners.
I then added more ideas to our week, including:
Spin Art Apple Craft for Kids
Supplies:
- Salad Spinner (The OXO brand is our favorite due to the clear sides and lid, plus it’s the sturdiest of all the brands we’ve used.)
- Red Tempera Paint
- Green Tempera Paint
- Yellow Tempera Paint
- Free Apple Printable (Scroll down towards bottom of this page for link to download.)
Preparation for the Spin Art Apple Craft
For best results, print the apple outline on heavy (card stock) paper so it’s more sturdy.
Make sure you have enough apples for each of the children, and extras.
If yours are like mine, they will want to make more than one!
After cutting out the apples, gather all the supplies and place them on a table.
Instructions
Place a paper apple inside the salad spinner.
Squeeze paint on top of the apple.
Place lid on top and make the spinner move!
We’ve used a variety of salad spinners and they’ve all worked a bit differently.
Some have levers, some have dials, some have big buttons to push.
The latter is what our children have loved the most, as you can see above.
Plus, this brand has a small button that acts as a brake, stopping the motion.
This alone is a huge hit with the children!
At first your children might move the spinner slowly, but after awhile they will get the hang of it, realizing that the faster they move the mechanism, the faster the motion.
I love the spinners with clear lids so that the children can see what’s going on as they make the spinner move.
Lots of color mixing taking place!
Finishing the Activity
When the activity is completed and the salad spinner comes to a halt, the lid can be removed.
The results will vary depending on how much paint was used and the speed of the spinner, but the children always love seeing what they’ve produced once the lid is gone.
What’s nice about this activity is that once the children see how it works, they can do most of the activity with little assistance.
We kept a tray next to the activity so that as the children removed their freshly painted apples, they could set them on it.
Once they were dry, we hung them on our classroom tree.
Our own apple tree!
After our apples were hung, we sang the song Way Up High In The Apple Tree.
We use my apple tree props from our Song & Rhymes Props Pack.
The children held these apple props, too.
We also read some favorite apple books throughout the week.
Click below for the free apple outline:
Have fun making your own spin art apple craft!
More Apple Fun
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Hi Sheryl. This looks so fun! Can I come play too?! Great pictures and the kids look like they’re having a blast! Thank you for sharing today! Pinned!
What a fun activity!
Oh wow! They’re beautiful, Sheryl! I have to dig out our salad spinner. My twos would love it! Thanks for the inspiration!
That’s such a great idea! Did you use fingerpaint for that? Greetings from Germany, laurence
What an awesome project. It reminds me of marble painting where you stick a sheet of plain paper inside a shoe box, squirt it with paint, add a few marbles and roll them around. My kids loved it and I think they would have loved this too.
Your apples came out so cute! What a fun way to make them!
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! I hope to see you linked up again later today.
Have a great weekend,
Beth =)
LOVE this art project! We are featuring you tomorrow on Share it Saturday over at Sugar Aunts. Thanks for linking up and see you again 🙂
Colleen at Sugar Aunts
These have turned out great! We havne’t done any spin art for a while but I like the apple idea.
Just letting you know I’ve featured this on The Sunday Showcase this week: http://www.herecomethegirlsblog.com/2013/10/19/art-for-kids.html
Just curious if this permanently stains the spinner? – Wouldn’t want to risk ruining my new one!