Give your child’s fine motor skills a workout while getting creative! How? This paint print art activity is an easy way to inspire imagination in a completely crafty way. And, you can adapt it for almost any holiday or season. So, if you’re looking for a Mother’s Day craft, spring art activity or celebrating any other ‘day’, this project will fit right in.

DIY Stamping Craft for Kids - this is such a clever, fun to make craft where kids make their own, reusable stamps using styrofoam that can be used over and over to make kids artwork (kids activities, crafts for kids, toddler, preschool, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade)

Learning and Development

What will your child learn/how can she develop while exploring this art activity?

Fine motor skills – finger/hand strength, eye-hand coordination, grip
Color identification and recognition
Shape identification and recognition
Explore the artistic process/creativity
Problem-solve
Understand the part to whole relationship
Explore color-mixing science

DIY Stamping Craft for Kids

Supplies:

tempera paint – simplify the materials and go with the primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and white
thick paintbrush
styrofoam sheets or a dinner-sized plate
craft sticks
card stock paper – the thicker paper holds the paint better than construction paper
scissors
Optional: Glue, glitter, colorful chalk, craft felt, modeling clay

How-To Instructions

Cut the Styrofoam into shapes that are at least as big as your child’s hand. Your creative kid can pick any shape she wants, just make sure she names the shapes as she cuts them out.

using a craft stick or stick draw design on styrofoam plate

Choose a design to print. Your child can put together shapes (we put together a square and a triangle to make a house) to make a picture. Pick a favorite animal, make a portrait of a person or go with a holiday theme. Avoid letters. They’ll print backwards. If your child can write letters as mirror

images or chooses only letters that look the same backwards and forwards, such as “A”, go for it.

Draw the design. Your child will use the edge of the craft stick to press into the Styrofoam. Press hard enough to see the lines, but not so hard that the craft stick pokes through. This is an excellent exercise in self-control and motor control.

Pour the paint into pools. Use a palette or a piece of wax paper to hold the paint. Mix the colors. Let your child experiment with mixing, blending her own colors.

Paint the printing plate — over the drawing. Your child can use one color or choose a few. If you happen to have a brayer on hand, use that to roll the paint on instead of the brush.

press covered styrofoam plate over piece of construction paper and press carefully to make a print

Turn the plate over so that the paint side is facing down and press it onto the paper. Press down on the back of the Styrofoam.

pull off the styrofoam plate to see the cool image you made

Peel the print plate off of the paper to reveal an image.

easily wash off the styrofoam plate, cover with a new color, and again use it as a stamp

Wash the plate off with a wet paper towel. Dry it completely. Reuse it with another color of paint. Your child can keep printing, making multiple images from the same plate.

Artsy Extensions

After your child has made several prints, line them up. Ask your child what looks the same and what looks different. Your child can make the prints look even more different by adding on to them. Use glue and glitter to outline the images, cut craft felt and glue it on to the print to make a textured collage, “finger paint” parts of the picture by spreading soft modeling clay over it or color in the larger areas with chalk.

add glue and glitter, clay or playdough, or felt shapes to add dimention to your art work

Does your child want to display her awesome artwork? Glue all of the prints onto one piece of posterboard and create a gigantic Mother’s Day card or a massive DIY gift to give on any other special day.