We rarely engage in messy sensory play around here, mostly because I am afraid of the mess. Seriously. However, I am trying my best to introduce more messy play simply because my boys love it. So what do you do when you find a container of Cool Whip that has expired? Well, play with it, of course!
I had an idea to try out tape resist on mirrors, especially since my boys love tape. And I figured that the strips of tape would ultimately look like animal stripes. As a result, I decided to take the idea of tiger stripes and zebra stripes and recreate them with some messy mirror sensory play. Especially since our theme for this month's Light & Reflections series is nature and animals.
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I happen to have one color of liquid watercolors on hand: orange. So between my orange liquid watercolors and the white Cool Whip, I had the perfect colors to make some imitation tiger and zebra prints.
First, the boys cut strips of tape and placed them on their mirrors. The boys worked together to cut the tape, which was really cute. Especially since K would slide the roll of tape around his feet or ankle to hold it in place.
We talked about how tigers and zebras both have stripes and then I let them decide which animal they wanted to "paint." K chose tiger and J was happy to have zebra. Then they started painting over their sporadic animal stripes made from tape.
J, however, was a little unsure of the Cool Whip at first. Soon though he was thoroughly massaging it with both hands.
K was very tentative. After painting a small section, he requested a paintbrush.
You can see the two different painting approaches below. One was delicately painting with a paintbrush while the other got downright messy.
Once they were done painting, we peeled off the tape to take a peek at the animal prints.
The end result was pretty neat, although it didn't really resemble any zebra or tiger that I've ever seen. So for this activity it was definitely more about the process than the end product. The process was definitely different and fun, albeit a bit messy. But surely nothing a towel couldn't quickly wipe up!
Check out the other nature and animals posts from this month's Light & Reflections series:
Ladybug Suncatcher from Happily Ever Mom
Vet Office Pretend Play from Still Playing School
Light Table Nature Mosaics with Loose Parts from Where Imagination Grows
You can also find all the posts from this series on the Light & Reflections Series board on Pinterest. Then join us in June for some art fun!
