Scratch Art

What You Do:

1. Lay newspapers on the floor of your workspace to prevent paint mess.
2. Give your child a piece of white paper and hand him the crayons. Encourage him to fill the entire page using all sorts of different colors.
3. When the paper is fully colored, help your child paint over the entire drawing with black paint and set it aside to dry.
4. As you wait, unravel the paper clip. You may also want to make a few more paintings as you wait so there are some ready when you finish the first one.
5. When the paint is fully dry, let your child's creativity loose! Use the paper clip to scratch some lines in the paint revealing the rainbow of colors underneath. Encourage him to identify each color as it emerges.
6. Experiment with different sizes of paperclips and different colors to see what kind of magical design you end up with! Let him make any sort of design or picture he wants, and then hang them around the house. Since this activity has different results every time, it's great to do over and over!