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My son is not a “crafter” or “painter”.  If I ask, “Do you want to paint today?!”  He will say, “No, let’s play Legos — or let’s be pirates on the ship!”  So I have to create an invitation to paint!

So if I want him to paint, I have to set it all up first, without him knowing, and then he will come out, get a huge smile, and decide to paint :)  This worked well for Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, so here we are for Easter!

Every child is different.

Invitation to Paint

• I cut eggs out of construction paper and set them down on top of a paper bag table-protector.

• I squirted many pastel shades of Tempera paint on some box tops (= easy clean up and easy to toss out).

• Then I gave my son some painting tools and some cut out shapes that he could stick to his eggs — circles, rectangles, triangles, crosses….

And for the baby….

She tried a little bit of paint {above} and did the rest with Do-A-Dot markers.

We will definitely be setting up monthly holiday painting provocations like this again!  We hung up our eggs on our clothesline in the kitchen.  A successful and non-intimidating time of painting and creating for a little guy who doesn’t love to paint :)

Here is our Valentine’s Day Invitation to Paint and our St. Patrick’s Day Invitation to Paint!