Living in New England, we are spoiled to be in close distance of many lovely beaches. Maddy loves going to see the “watah”, playing in the sand and of course, collecting shells. For this project, you will create a “birds eye view” style beach scene that is also an interactive activity!
Craft/Activity/Snack: Paint Chip Beach
Objective: Use shades of blue and tan paint chips to create an interactive beach scene
Skills Utilized: Fine motor skills, gluing, color recognition, sensory exploration
Suggested Reading: Goodnight Beach by Adam Gamble
Materials: paper, glue, scissors, paint chips in shades of blue and tan, seashells (if you don’t have any you have collected yourself, you can buy a bag at the Dollar Tree or craft store!)
First, divide the paper by drawing a line down the middle. I made my sand side slightly smaller so we could have lots of those pretty shades of blue on the ocean side.
Cut the paint chips however you’d like! I decided to cut off the white parts and color names and ended up with rectangle and squares.
Get gluing! Maddy loves using gluestick so I instructed her to only put glue on the right side (as you can see, a little snuck onto the other side).
While your child is gluing the pieces down, talk about how some of the shades vary from light to dark, etc.
Repeat this process with the blue paint chips on the “ocean” side”.
The end result:
Next, we played with our beach by adding shells. We sorted them by shapes, sizes and Maddy even made a little stacking game with some of them! We also discussed the different colors and textures.
Ways to Expand Upon this Activity:
- Listen to ocean sounds while you work on your beach!
- Add ocean themed stickers to your beach-fish, seaweed, boats, etc.
- Use your seashells to practice your counting skills.
Crafternoon Playdate 