Little hands need nice large, easy to hold, art tools, and these homemade peg and sponge painters tick all those boxes, plus they are loads of fun to print and paint with!
This easy sponge painting activity uses cut up kitchen or bath sponges and pegs for a fun process art activity that is perfect for toddlers, preschoolers and older kids!
If you have a toddler or preschooler, or a child of any age, who loves creating and painting try this easy sponge painting activity.
The clothes peg (clothes pin) attached to the top of the sponge makes an easy to grab handle that is perfect for small hands to manipulate, making this a great open-ended sponge painting for toddlers activity. It’s also great for children who don’t like to get their hands messy!
Sponge painting is an open-ended, process art activity, which means it is all about exploring and using the materials in different ways to see what happens, and not so much about creating a finished product! Its a great activity for working on fine motor and gross motor (small hand muscles and big arm muscles) skills as well as eye-hand co-ordination, cause and effect, and experimentation.
Easy Sponge Painting for Kids
These easy DIY sponge painters are easy to make, and they use items you probably already have at home, or you can easy grab from the supermarket.
Materials Needed for Sponge Painting:
- Sponge or soft foam pieces
- Scissors
- Clothes Pegs (Clothes pins)
- Plates or similar flat containers for the paint
- Washable Tempera Paint
- Paper
- Something to cover your work surface.
- Smocks or aprons.
How to Make Sponge Painters.
To make a sponge painter you’ll need a kitchen sponge or soft foam pieces.
Cut your sponges into smaller pieces and into some basic shapes. You might like to draw the shapes onto the sponges with a marker before you cut them out.
We cut our sponges into squares, circles and triangles, but you can cut out whatever shapes you like. You could cut flower and leaf shapes for a spring or garden theme, or stars and circles for a Christmas or space theme!
Add a clothes peg (clothes pin) to the top of each sponge shape to make easy handles to grab onto, and you are ready to do some sponge printing!
How to do Sponge Printing
We used washable liqutemp paint in bright primary colours to print with. You may need to water down the paint a little if it is very thick, and don’t add too much paint to each plate. It’s better to top up the paint during the activity, rather than have a big squishy plate full of paint at the start.
Put a little paint in the middle of each play and spread it around a bit with your peg sponge painters. Now you can go wild sponge printing, dabbing and painting to your hear’ts content!
This is a great process art activity for all ages. Toddlers, preschoolers, and even adults will enjoy this easy art activity where the focus is definitely on the process of experimenting and exploring with the peg sponge painters.
You’ll need to have lots of paper on hand so the kids can try out lots of techniques and make all kinds of paintings, and you’ll need somewhere to dry them all too.
More Printmaking for Kids
Printmaking is a great process art activity for kids of all ages! It so fun to explore and experiment with how different objects and textures transfer onto paper.
If your kids love printmaking, try some of these ten crazy items to print with, or check out these easy printmaking ideas:
If you have a go at some sponge printing we’d love to see some pictures! Tag me on instagram (@picklebums) or share a photo on our facebook page.
Lulu says
Love the idea of attaching pegs to the sponges! Have done a ton of sponge painting in the past but never thought to use pegs to hold onto.
I recently saw a post, can`t remember where, in which they were painting with toothbrushes. Thought that was a cool idea! I loved painting with potatoes when I was a kid- with shapes cut out of them. Have painted with different vehicles before with Noah too…that was fun.
So do you let the littlest pickle paint yet?
katef says
No,,, Noey doesn’t have any interest in painting at the moment. He’d rather just scrunch up the paper and eat it, so that’s what he does, if he’s not asleep :)
cathy says
Great idea to add the pegs.
Melissa says
I love this and the other article about using household objects. using the clothespins to hold onto the sponges is absolutely brilliant! Now that it is summer here and way too hot to be outside, this will be a lot of fun. Thanks for the great crafty reminder!
Rebekah says
I love the idea of using clothespins for spongepainting. A great idea for kids who like to keep their fingers clean.
Jamie @ hands on : as we grow says
Love the added fine motor practice with the clothespins – and it keeps their fingers clean! Awesome!
Mandi says
I can’t believe I’ve never thought to add pegs like that! Wonderful idea! My boys love sponge painting. :)
Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas says
Sponge painting is fun and I love that you were able to make your own!
Marbles painting is lots of fun for the kiddos as well as using some veggies to make prints. I did that with my girls and they LOVED it.
Tammy @ Kids Make Mess says
I love this idea and I tried it while back with pom poms. Trouble was, every time my daughter picked up the clothes pin, she pinched it and the pom pom fell off. Did you experience this at all?
katepickle says
That’s not so much of an issue with the pieces of sponge because they are pretty thick and kind of wedge the peg open. Maybe an elastic band around it to hold it shut might help?
Tammy @ Kids Make Mess says
Thanks! I’ll try the sponge instead.