This was the first time we have ever tried Salt Painting so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect ~~other than a mess~~ when I pulled out the salt trays to play with today. With Father’s Day right around the corner I wanted to incorporate a fun Father’s day craft into our daily lessons (little man is exploring colors). Painting with salt ended up being perfect, and for him it was squeal worthy! Who knew this would be so fun and fascinating?

I am loving how it turned out! Salt painting is a great activity for fine motor, exploring textures, and exploring color interactions.

Items Needed for Salt Painting:

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Black Construction Paper
Glue
Salt
Food Dye and Water or Water Colors
Paintbrush
Salt Tray (provided by Oriental Trading)
Straws or Pipette

To do this craft is super easy, quick, and surprisingly not all that messy. To start have your kids draw out their design with glue on the black construction paper. Since my little guy does not have the manual dexterity yet to squeeze a glue bottle, we put glue into a dish for him and let him use the paint brush to paint out his design. I added a little bit of water to the mixture to make it easier to paint. If we could have pulled off decorating straight out of the glue bottle without frustrations I would have as that would have been great for his fine motor strength.

Once your design is finished (sorry no pictures my hands were full during the designing step) pour salt over the entire picture.

Allow it to sit for a minute and then gently shake off the excess salt on to your salt tray. Let kids play with this as the glue on the painting dries!

Once the glue is dry let kids take the color mixture (either food dye and water or watercolors) and pipette (or straw) and apply drops of color throughout the painting.

You really do not need to apply a lot of color to one section or brush it on. The colors will grow on their own. My kids thought it was MAGIC! It was so much fun to watch my kids make predictions and enjoy the process of creating!

The only thing I probably would have changed about this activity would be the concentration of food dye to water that I used. I put in about 5 drops into every glass and our colors were a bit diluted. We will definitely be doing this activity again so there is always next time!