Aluminum Foil Meteor Painting Process Art for Toddlers and Preschool

This week (and next as well) Little M. and I are learning all about outer space. You can check out the Paper Towel Roll Telescope Craft that I posted yesterday. Today's activity was a fun process art activity that is great for toddlers and preschoolers of all levels of fine motor development. Additionally, it uses fun novel art materials that your child is sure to love using (Who doesn't like the crinkle of aluminum foil?)

Here's What Your Child Will Need to Make This Process Art Activity:

• aluminum foil
• non toxic washable white (or another color) paint
• black construction paper

That's It!

Before starting this activity we read the book Meteors from National Geographic. It is very interesting with gorgeous photographs, however it requires a fairly high listening comprehension and attention span (I would recommend it for four and up or younger children with a strong interest in all things space). If your curious about more great books about space, check out our roundup of Our Favorite Space Books.

First, I tore off a piece of aluminum foil. I asked Little M. if she would be interested in crumpling the foil into a meteor shape, and she enthusiastically agreed. She crumpled the foil into a little ball. The more compactly you (or your child) crumple(s) the ball, the more meteor-like the print will look. We ended up making a total of two meteors. You could make meteors of various sizes by using larger or smaller pieces of aluminum foil.

Pour a little bit of paint unto a plastic container lid or some other flat lipped surface (a paper plate would work too). Let your toddler or preschooler experiment with dipping the foil “meteor” into the paint and stamping it onto the paper. They might load up their meteor with paint every time they stamp or they might stamp a few times each time they load it with paint creating an effect of having various shades of the paint color. This is a really great activity for open exploration for curious kids!

Little M. had a blast with this activity and ended up making several creations. It is always fun doing an easy process art activity that utilizes unconventional materials such as aluminum foil. Because this activity requires very little fine motor skill, even very small children can enjoy doing it independently.

Need another fun process art activity like this one? Check out Drawing with Sound or our other process art activities.

Thank you for reading our meteor stamping process art activity for preschoolers and toddlers. If you enjoyed this feel free to share it with your friends on social media or by leaving a comment below (we'd love to hear from you)! Let us know if you enjoyed this activity or how you learn about meteors with your children.