Vertical Surfaces and Painting Activities

Stamps from a craft store

There are all kinds of activities that you can do with your child/students to work on improving fine motor skills-  of course there are the obvious activities of coloring with markers/crayons and using pencils/paper, but you can also change it up a bit with painting.  When my kids were little, I used to buy Crayola poster paint and a ream of plain paper and set them up in the kitchen with their Step 2 easel. For a color palette, I would cut the bottom of an egg carton in half and fill each of the six spots with colors of paint.  It was one of their favorite things to do, and something they all still remember. Developmentally, painting on a vertical plane such as an easel is a good way to start.  Vertical surfaces encourage the following:

• encourages an upright position
• strengthens shoulder and arm muscles, as well as use of intrinsic hand muscles
• encourages wrist extension, which is good for developing mature grasp patterns
• encourages eye hand coordination
• encourages bilateral coordination

There are also several different ways to explore painting using various items as tools.  Here are a few ideas to use for painting tools in addition to use of fingers and paint brushes:

• sponges- you can buy shaped sponges, or cut a chunk of a sponge and pinch a clothespin to it for a handle
• stampers (see picture above)
• Use veggies and fruits as stampers- cut an apple in half and use as a stamper, potatoes, a pepper, broccoli or you can push a corn cob holder into one for a handle
• use cleaning brushes, such as a bottle cleaning brush or a toothbrush
• use plastic utensils
• dip a piece of yarn in paint and paint with it
• drive match box cars through paint and drive on paper
• use q tips or pinch a cotton ball with a clothespin for a handle and paint with it
• paint with spiky balls/koosh balls- pinch with a clothespin for a handle