Fall Fingerpaint Trees

I've got another fall art project to share - and Henry got to do this one too! I've been doing art projects almost exclusively with Calvin, but I realize that Henry is at point in his development where not only is he able to start participating in the things his big brother does (with some modifications), but it's probably really good for his development, too.

Just yesterday Calvin and I were noticing the pretty fall colors on the trees and talking about how the leaves on some of the trees are orange or yellow or red. Calvin likes how the brown fallen leaves crunch under his sneakers. Who doesn't?! So today I talked with him about making a tree like the ones we saw yesterday and get this guys - when I asked him to name the colors of the paint... HE GOT THEM ALL RIGHT!! He correctly named the paint colors red, orange, and yellow. Maybe he is not color blind after all ;)

We used tempera paint and fingerpaint, because that's what I had on hand in the colors I wanted to use. I cut little paper cups into shallow bowls for the paint. I used a brown sharpie to draw the trees ahead of time (P.S. If SAHM's had prep-time it would be so much easier to do stuff like this. Amiright?). If you're not into drawing trees, you could also print one from the interweb. Or with older kids, they could draw the trees themselves.

Sorry about the blurry pics! It's hard to catch the kiddos in action. Especially Henry because I was also trying to keep him from destroying his tree painting!

This was Henry's first fingerpaint encounter. And good thing it is non-toxic, because his little paint-covered fingers went straight into his mouth! So for my little paint-eater I quickly switched to yogurt and jelly "painting" instead.

Tastes much better than fingerpaint!

Calvin had a blast. And when his tree was finished (according to him), he asked for more trees to paint.

Henry looks a little sad here. Maybe he thinks his yogurt and jelly isn't as much fun as real paint.

The trees turned out so beautifully. While they were painting, Calvin said he wanted to go see trees again and we talked about our hiking trip a couple of weeks ago. I asked if he would like to go hiking this weekend with Daddy and he said yes, and that he would like to invite his friends to come hiking too. Maybe we'll pick a hike with some nice fall colors :)