Easy Painting Ideas for 3 Year Olds
Here are some easy painting ideas for three year old to do. Recently, I have been working at a private Montessori school teaching Casa students who are ages 3 to 5 years old. I wanted to share some easy painting ideas before three year old to do. So if you have a young toddler who is three year olds and up, you will want to check out these great painting ideas for them to try.
easy painting ideas for 3 year olds
Q-Tip Painting
Q-tip painting is at easy painting idea for three year olds. You can give them a Q-tip/cotton swab to paint with I like using tempera paint because it is a washable. I avoid acrylic paint because it will stay in their clothes and it can ruin any furniture that is nearby.
What is nice about painting with a Q-tip is that it will allow your three year old to really work on focussing and patience, as well as slowing down, and taking their time to complete their painting this results in a beautiful painting, similar to the look of pointillism.
If you are a teacher or homeschool parents, you can also teach your three year old or up about pointillism from art history, and what exactly that means by showing them some examples of pointillism paintings, or a quick video from YouTube.
I did this a monarch butterfly painting, with 3 to 5 year old at the private Montessori school where I work.
First, I taught them about a monarch butterfly, and why monarch butterflies migrate for the winter. I talk to them about monarch butterfly being orange in colour. We also went over how students can make orange by mixing yellow and red together. We talked about that Monarch butterfly might create by flying through the sky, so we wanted to colour our sky background blue for the colour of the sky. We used blue chalk pastels to do the background, and then students smashed the chalk pastels with their finger.
I then gave them yellow and red tempera paint with cotton swabs, where they could mix their own orange, and paint in the monarch butterfly using a Q-tip I got a picture of the monarch butterfly free from Canva, and printed it off as a PDF and photocopied enough pages for each of the students.
You can do Q-tip painting with pretty much anything it's great to print off colouring pages and allow students to fill in the colouring pages using the Q-tip painting technique.
Finger Painting
Finger painting is of course, a classic easy painting idea for three year olds and up. Three year olds love to finger paint because it is nasty and it is also a sensory art experience, which they absolutely adore!
Of course finger painting can be messy so it's important to mitigate the mess when you are doing the finger painting here are some tips to help you out.
Finger Painting Tips:
Have students wear aprons and encourage them to wear old clothes, in case they get dirty!
Explain to students that they are only going to paint on the paper and they are not going to paint on the tables or each other
Use tempera paint, ensure that it is washable. You could also mix a small amount of dish soap in the paint as well or water it down a bit.
Use a special finger painting paper or a thicker paper so the paint will not soak through
Used table cloths to protect your tables.
Show students how to wash their hands and make sure you have enough soapy water and paper towels nearby and ready
Watercolour Painting
Watercolour painting is fun and easy for three year olds and up to try I like doing watercolour painting with watercolour paint, palettes, and not tubes of watercolour paint. The paint pallets are easier for young students to use and they create less mess afterwards.
Again, it's important to teach students how to properly use paint brushes, and how to paint gently. I like to explain that using a paintbrush is like petting a dog for a cat we want to pet them softly gently and carefully. Otherwise we will make the cat or dog very upset, and we will wreck our paintbrush.
Painting with Stamps, Cookie Cutters, or Stencils
Another easy painting idea for three year olds, and up is to paint with rubber stamps, cookie cutters, or stencils. You can dip plastic cookie cutters into tempura paint, and the student can stamp it on their paper. You can hold a stencil or tape the stencil down with painters tape, and the student can apply some paint with a paint brush on paper. You can lay out a cookie tray that has some tempera paint on it, and the student can dip a rubber stamp into the temper paint and stick the stamp onto their paper.
This is a great and easy painting idea for three-year-olds and up to do to create a realistic painting that uses a variety of stencils and stamps you can find stencils and stamps for almost any topic or theme
Experimental Painting
Experimental painting is a fun and easy painting idea for three year old and up to try. Of course experimental painting can be messy so you want to consider my finger painting text that I mentioned earlier so that you can reduce the mask using this painting method with your students or children.
This is a great way for students to explore and experiment with different textures and ways to make different marks on their page.
You can use a variety of different materials with tempera paint so that your child can have fun experimenting with painting.
Here are some ideas for materials to use with experimental painting:
Marbles or small balls to roll around
Old cars
Bits of nature like leaves and flowers. You can check out my nature printing video tutorial here.
Old string, ribbon or yarn
Rubber bands
Old, clean toothbrushes
Plastic, spoons, or plastic forks
Squeeze bottles or spray bottles with water
Straws, toothpicks, or cotton swabs
Lace or old doilies
Bubble wrap, plastic wrap or plastic mesh that surrounds different fruits and vegetables
Any other materials that you think would be fun to paint left that you have lying around your house!
Conclusion:
There’s lots of different painting ideas to try with three year olds. Remember they are still learning -it’s helpful to show them how to paint but also how to clean up and what your expectations are.
You can help to minimize the mess - by watching this video here! Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel as well to see new painting, tutorials that I put out.
I hope you have enjoyed these easy painting, ideas for three year olds and up to try!
