Sensory Painting with Bugs

I have been wanting to try bug and mud painting with the kids all spring. We missed painting then, but now that summer is here we had a chance to try it out. To start, I was thinking classic mud and plastic bugs. After some thought, and a few months, I decided to make my own mud paint. The other day, when holding a sleeping baby brother, inspiration hit me! I had it! The perfect activity for us to try for Sensory Painting with Bugs. I could not wait to see if the kids thought is was perfect too.

Sensory Painting with Bugs

When coming up with our activities I really try to think. Will my kids enjoy it, what we can learn, will they have fun, and will it be great for multiple ages? This activity fit for us. My kids are 1-5 yr. However, the 1yr did not take part this day while we painted. I can see us doing this again and letting him try it too.

Sensory painting- exploring sight, touch, smell, and possible taste if edible while painting. That is my definition. This is also a great process art project. There is no set outcome for the painting.

What we used:

plastic bugs

small container

DIY Mocha Paint

sticks

white cardstock

My vision for this activity was to tie in nature to our homemade paints and plastic bugs. Using sticks and grass could make that happen.

I wanted a stick frame and a grass canvas for our bug painting to take place. All things my kids love ~ sticks, grass, painting, and bugs!

I got 4 sticks out of our stick box and created a framed grass canvas for the kids. I then let them use the bugs as their paint brushes.

This DIY paint is kid safe. Since I added a sprinkle of glitter I would not call it edible. While painting the grass I explained we would then make prints of our paintings on paper to keep.

Once the grass was covered with paint the kids pressed down the cardstock over it. When they lifted it up we had fun mud paintings we could now keep!

Brown paint may not jump off the screen at you but this was a fun project. We left our paintings to dry and we will see what we can do with them later. I love re-purposing projects for more fun later.

This is a little messy. Depending on the kids it could be a lot. Each age and individual kid is going to factor into this. My oldest did not get as messy as my 3yr. But clean up was easy. Wash hands and we took a watering can and wet the grass. This rinsed the paint away.

This art project let us explore color( the bugs, the grass, the paint), gave us multiple textures to investigate, let us enjoy a wonderful scent(the paints are scented), let the kids express themselves, creative free play while painting. All in all it was fun for the kids and easy set up and clean up for me. Win, win!

Our first mud paintings with real mud

Mud posts:

Digging and dumping with COFFEE MUD

Mud and Bugs {Sensory Sink}

It’s All About MUD Today! { A collection of mud play activities and alternatives to outside dirt for mud}

Bug Books

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About The Author

Jaime

Hi! I am Jaime, mama to three high energy boys. With three boys, life never slows down, but I wouldn't have it any other way! We love creating, learning, and crafting together and we can turn anything into an adventure.