What makes a good surface for painting is not just its texture or format but also the possibilities it allows. And when children experiment with different media, they not only have a lot of fun testing and experimenting, but they also collect knowledge that will enable them to make choices.

With this Play Invitation, children can make their own stickers while developing fine motor skills and creativity and exploring concepts such as transparent, opaque, absorption, adhesive, and transformation.

What Could Lead Us to This Play Invitation

  • Children have been exploring collage and assembling materials;
  • Children are curious about velcros, magnets and things that get attached;
  • Children get excited with stickers, they put them all over the place and on themselves.

Materials Needed

  • Kraft Tape
  • Scissor
  • Tray
  • Permanent markers (Sharpies)
  • Cake Watercolors
  • Brushes

Setting up This Play Invitation

  1. Cut pieces of the Kraft Tape and lay them with adhesive side down on a tray.
  2. Place the markers near by.
  3. Prepare the watercolors with brushes.

    Tip: You can invite children to decide the length of the sticker they want to draw. And depending on their age they can cut the tape with a scissor.

How to Create the Stickers

  1. Invite the children to create a sticker by drawing over the kraft tape with the permanent markers .
Child drawing with sharpies on sticker paper

2. Next, have the children carefully paint their over their drawings with the watercolors, making sure not to get paint on the tray.

3. Let dry!

Stickers created by child with sharpie drawing and painted over

TIP: For very young children, use a long strip to help keep water from reaching the adhesive side. Cut into “stickers” once it dries.

How to Nurture the Natural Unfolding of the Child’s Identity During This Play Invitation

  • Children have the right to make choices. Making choices and decisions is a life skill that children can begin to develop from a young age with the support of an attentive educator who respects and values them. One way to help children learn to gather information and solve problems is through a prepared environment in which children can autonomously choose from a diverse collection of materials and tools what they need for their explorations.

The Academic Learning Opportunities

  • MATH: Explore spatial awareness.
  • PHYSICAL: Build on their fine motor skills.
  • SCIENCE: The science of adhesive – how papers adhere to things and why does it looses adherence; the transformation of the paper wien in contact with watercolors (wrinkles).
  • ART: Explore composition, color, creativity, and a new surface to wirk with.

Extensions

  • Continuing to explore the concept of adhesive, create a contact paper’s sticky surface on a wall and place foam blocks in a basket close to it. Invite children to build structures by sticking the blocks to the contact paper.

Book Recommendation

Meet the artist who works with dots and stickers.