Art activity trays for toddlers

Little Bean went to his first Gymboree art class last week and loved it. The kids got to play with play dough and make collages. The first collage was a flower with seeds glued in the centre with colourful paper and foam pieces on the petals. They then drew around the flower with some really cool, soft, silky crayons from Crayola. I can't recall the product name but will find out and update this post later. Then the kids made a cone hat, covered it in glue and rolled it across a tray of feathers and pom poms. This class will definitely be a weekly activity for us.

I recently read online somewhere (I really must start taking better notes of where I find things online) about making up trays for art activities. It suggested putting the drawing paper in a tray so that your little one can not draw off the page and on to the table. Brilliant idea! So this week, I have made up several trays for Little Bean using crayons and stamps. The stamps were a bit hit. It also gave him ample opportunity to practice his latest word "Ewww". Whenever he got ink on his hand or the table, he'd point to it and say "Ewww" and ask for a wet wipe to clean it up.

Little Bean continues to be very ambidextrous. He was stamping with both hands at the same time.

Little Bean got very enthusiastic and had the tray sliding all over the place, so I would recommend placing  piece of rubber non-slip mat under the tray like we did. It worked a treat.

We will continue with the art trays for other activities such as painting and collages. We will also use the trays for play dough.