Vegetable Stamping!

I saw a post on vegetable stamping at theresjustonemommy.com and I loved the idea for various reasons.

First off, E has become as of late a pickier eater, and I’m a strong believer from my experience in teaching and child care that if kids are involved in the process of making food at any level they are more apt to at least try a dish. So if we have some fun stamping various fruits and veggies, perhaps they will become more appealing. Second, I enjoy introducing E to all sorts of creative ways to make art and get messy. Who needs a paintbrush when you’ve got a carrot?

I have to say that our vegetable stamping was not nearly as visually stunning as the one linked above, but as always with young children’s art, process over product!

E really enjoyed doing this project as well as the finished pieces. She likes to go look and look at them and touch them, allowing for us to talk about what we did to make the painting, the colors we used, and the shapes of the fruit and vegetable stamps. Once again we incorporated the pom poms, as E saw them in the art bucket and just had to have them, and I agree they are a great addition to the now collage of sorts.

This is clearly a messy project, as you can see in the middle picture on the far right column we had a costume change before we headed onto carrot and celery prints!

There are lots of opportunities to engage children in language with this project. When toddlers are beginning to speak it’s important to find those moments during the day when they are interested in what’s going on and want to express themselves. Language begets language, so talk about what they are intrigued by, verbalizing the shapes and colors they point to, and labeling what they are doing, such as painting, stamping, touching the gooey paint, holding the apple/celery/etc, and in so doing encourage their efforts to speak and communicate with you. For older children this is a great project for using more art focused language, such as the textures they see the fruit stamps make, the colors that are created when the paints combine, and the mediums they are using to create their piece.

I think the list of items needed is pretty self explanatory, just gather some fruits and vegetables, cut them in half, or in the case of the carrots and celery, into sticks, get some paint, paper and other painting tools if desired, and let your little ones get creative.