Pine Needle Painting

 I decided to put the brushes away for this painting activity and take advantage of the beautiful smelling natural brushes hanging from the pine tree.  I happened to have some living branches and one dried branch that I picked up on a family nature walk.

All you need for this activity is:

• pine needles, fresh or dried
• washable paint
• a painting pallet (we used a plastic lid)
• a drop cloth (we used a trash bag)
• (optional) a clothespin to hold the end of the twig if the child is nervous about touching the twig (sometimes Little M. doesn't like new sensory experiences, this time we didn't need it)

Arrange the materials (except for the paint) in your child's work space, allow them to explore their new materials.  Needles are great for smell (is there anything better than pine scent?), touch, sound (the dried needles, especially make a nice crunch sound), and obviously sight.  If you have one, you can invite your child to examine the pine branches with a magnifying glass.

Have them choose a few colors of paint and let them get creative.  Little M. had fun dipping the stem into the paint moving it across the page, which was totally not what I expected!  She invited me to paint as well, so I did.  She asked me to pain a "b" which was really tricky with the pine needles!  Overall, this activity was amazingly fun to do.