Christmas painting on the light table - You have got to try this

santa red, Christmas tree green - and once it was mixed up it became pepparkaka brown - at this point I added a dollop of the brown colour I had mixed with pepperkaka dough onto the light table to create a wonderful Christmas smell. This time I opted for a group activity - and this worked well. Five children worked, but I would not do that again, four worked when it was the right combination of children - but three was great as there was enough space to get creative.

it didn't take long until the children were turning themselves into pepparkakor (and making fart sounds with their hands)

after a while I drew a pepperkaka man to see how this would stimulate their experience

Immediately the children started drawing their own figures

with all their wonderful ways

some children stayed for a long time, others for just a short time, and new children joined in. It worked so well as those who had been there for a while had the confidence to try something new - like having claws - which the others then tried. Sometimes the child new to the table would come with a fresh idea - such as smelling the paint - and triggering some time spent smelling the spiced paint.

the claw art could be done on hands too

after a another while I introduced some corks - these could be used to create art, but after a few minutes the children had covered them in sticky paint

every once in a while (usually as a new child arrived) I added some more green, red and pepparkaka paint so that all children were able to experience the mixing of colours and also the feeling of lumpy pepparkaka paint

glitter was also added to the paint for extra sparkle and for extra texture/sensory experience. For a while there was just one child and she started building with the corks, the paint made them sticky enough to allow all sorts of building.

she also started experimenting with the paint on her clothes - so I quickly pulled them off and allowed her to paint on herself

next was the floor - and I said it was OK as long as she helped me clean up afterwards

at this point two more girls returned and also wanted to be bare legged. Within seconds they were painting their feet

which quickly progressed to placing their feet on the light table - and being instructed to take phototgraphs of their feet!!

making foot prints was exciting

placing a foot on the light table was also exciting

and then discovering you could ice-skate on the floor... well there was so much joy that I wish I could do this every day...

afterwards the three children helped me clean the floor - there was more ice-skating on the wet bubbly floor, laughing - and actual cleaning - I did not take photographs during this time (when they were using sponges) as I felt I needed to be active WITH them to maintain a positive and safe clean up - which it was. It ended with one of the children saying "Thank you Suzanne, that was SO much fun". They were ALLOWED to experiment - and I allowed myself time to clean up afterwards. The light table did get a bit messy - but it was only 20 minutes to clean everything up afterwards - and the session last 90 minutes - so well worth it!!