Creating Patterns with Paint Stamps

The boys and I had a great time stamping with paint. This is always a favorite activity!

For our stamps we used:

• Lego bricks
• Lego wheels – they make either circles or tire prints!
• Playdough stamps that came in our Melissa and Doug playdough set
• Drinking straws
• Celery
• DIY Wikki Stix stamps

First, the boys spent time exploring all of the various stamps. The Wikki Stix stamps were my favorite! You can see how we made them here.

The Lego prints were fun as well.

After the boys had explored for a while, I gave them long strips of paper, and had them use the paint stamps to create patterns.

Owen still easily reverts to thinking that a pattern is where you put whatever looks good next. It helped to name each of the shapes, and say that pattern as we went along. “Squares, snake, celery, lines, squares, snake, what comes next?”

The final results look SO good! This type of technique would make great homemade wrapping paper, I think.