Roller Painting

Tom is learning new things everyday and he is becoming increasingly fast at picking up new things. As you know we have been doing painting with Tom for a long while, mainly this includes hand painting. This is when I give Tom a piece of paper covered in paint an he uses his hands as the brushes and he does 'mark making'. This is a great way for Tom to paint but I wanted to give him the opportunity to explore paint using other mark making materials.

Today I decided to use rollers with Tom. We have used rollers before, but this consisted of a lot of 'hand over hand' with me and Tom had very little control of the activity. I don't like doing any 'hand over hand' work with Tom if it can be avoided as I believe it takes a lot of the freedom and therefore the fun out of the play. This time I wanted to see how Tom would manage with a lot less input from me...he smashed it!

I used Hobbycraft's scented paint for this activity as I thought it would engage to even more into the activity. This certainly worked as Tom maintained his interest for nearly an hour. I still spread the paint over the paper for Tom this time but for future progression we could use a paint tray.

After introducing Tom to all the different roller brushes we chose the one that he gave the best response to. This seemed to be the rough sponge. I supported Tom to hold the handle and we practiced hooking his fingers and thumb round the handle to hold it in place. This took a bit of practice from Tom but when he was really concentrating he got it really well. At times he was holding the roller sponge in the air unaided!

Once we had practiced holding the roller sponge I then supported Tom to make marks. I did this by encouraging him to lift his elbow so that his hand was at the best angle to mark make and then together we moved his arm across the page. As Tom became more confident with the activity he was then lifting his elbow up all by himself and he only needed me to help him move across the page.

Even in this short activity Tom was making real progress. He is a really fast learner so it makes every activity a lot of fun! I think it is important to remember the Child's independence and support them in doing however much they can on their own, with your support when they want it. Tom seemed to have a lot of fun with this activity and it was so easy to do. It was also so lovely to see him doing so well and learning so quickly. We are going to keep on with the fine motor skill practice, I'm sure we will update you all soon.