Pine Branch Painting

After I saw this idea on teachpreschool.org I knew it had to part of our Christmas activity list. We got a free permit from our local Ranger Station and cut our own tree this year, so I had plenty of pine boughs to work with. I grabbed a few pieces and taped them together to make a brush and turned Erik loose. I decided to use tape to make some resist art for another project (which you'll get to see in a day or two), so at first I only gave Erik red paint to make it look like candy cane stripes.

 After a while we broke out the rest of the colors and (as always happens) Erik ditched the brush and went for finger painting. He had a marvelous time though, no matter what he was using to paint with.

 I decided that it was high time for Sharli to get some painting experience, so I mixed up a batch of edible finger paint and set her up with some tape resist art as well. It took her a moment to figure out what to do...

 ...but then she LOVED it! She had a grand time smearing and splashing paint all over the place.

 In the end we wound up with some fun candy cane striped paper to decorate with, and some fun memories as well.