Toddler craft: Pasting  

Frida loves doing art and craft activities. She goes to her art shelves throughout the day, and really seems to have a need for mark making at the moment. 

I will admit that, although Frida has art materials readily available to her, I haven’t done much pasting or sticking with Frida. I thought I should probably rectify the situation immediately, which is how she found herself making a sticky artwork pre-9am this morning! 

Pasting is great for fine motor skills and so simple to set up. I gave Frida two small dishes, one with PVA and one with some glitter glue, as well as paper and paintbrushes and some torn tissue paper (which she helped to tear).  

When we made a candle lantern together we used similar materials (glue, torn tissue paper) and she immediately spotted the similarity and started talking about it.

There wasn’t much demonstration or prompting needed with this activity. Frida was mainly more intetested in “painting” with the glues and mixing them together, but a bit of paper did get stuck too. 

I think it could be so tempting to meddle, or suggest to her “why don’t you stick some more paper?”, but watching her working independently is such a wonderful reward for not interfering! 

Frida definitely needed a bath by the end, and she’s still looking a little bit glittery (it’s the season for it after all). 

She got a bit frustrated at the end as the tissue paper was getting really stuck to her fingers, so we had to go and wash everything off. But I think the activity was a success, and I’ll definitely be offering her similar opportunities for sticking and collage making with different types of paper and materials. 

What art and crafts do your little ones enjoy? I’d love more ideas!