Clapton Park Children's Centre

#13 Mark Making and Card Making

Dear parents and carers,

I hope you are well. We enjoyed seeing families during the weekly room play sessions last week on MEET, these will continue at the same time each week using the same link, please do join if your child is keen to see familiar adults and other children from the room!
As well as the weekly challenge below, please find attached 2 more recipes to try making at home! (Please note, if you try the pesto one using nettles, it is not suitable for pregnant women!)

This week’s challenge comes ready for Father’s Day on Sunday 21st, but can be used for any cards or other mark-making activities!

Weekly Challenge #13: creative mark-making
Mark-making is an important part of babies and children’s physical development, as they learn to handle different tools, develop the co-ordination and muscle strength to control these tools, and as they get older use these skills to achieve a planned effect. As well as helping with developing writing, the joy of producing beautiful artwork and sharing that success with parents can be a big confidence boost, as well as simply being a fun sensory experience!

Can you make a beautiful card using one of the following techniques?

Teabag painting – try using a variety of teabags (especially red eg berry teas), dip them in warm water, and use them to create patterns on the paper – as well as feeling good, it is a multisensory activity as you can compare the smells of the teas as well! Once the teabags have stopped giving out their own colour, you can carry on using them dipping them into paint (be warned this can get messy quickly!) See https://teaching2and3yearolds.com/preschool-art-with-tea-bags/

Drawing patterns with cars – this is a fun activity often used in nursery with children who show less interest in drawing or mark making. Use sellotape to attach a felt tip pen to the back or front of a toy car (ideally a bigger, chunkier car works best to keep the pen stuck on). Drive the car around and see what patterns the car can draw! IF you want you can have multiple cars with pens that match their colour. See https://www.messylittlemonster.com/2019/07/mark-making-drawing-with-cars.html#:~:text=Simply%20use%20tape%20to%20attach,a%20mark%20will%20be%20made.
Fruit or leaf printing – you can dip anything into paint and use it for printing shapes. The ends of toilet/kitchen roll tubes are perfect for making circles, but with some careful folding can also make good hearts, triangles and squares too. Fruit, especially with interesting patterns such as lemons, can be excellent to explore how the printing changes as you vary the amount of paint. For older children, leaves can be used for printing to make bigger shapes and pictures (for example in the style of Leaf Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvAK2hxNFrY)

For hundreds of other simple printing ideas see here: http://www.madamteacher.com/okul-oncesi-baski-boya-calismalari/anneler-ve-ogretmenler-icin-3-yas-cocuguna-boyama-sekilleri.html

wild garlic pesto.docx

Courgette^J Banana and Lemon Cake.docx