When I think about summer, I think of the sudden increase is dirt and mud everywhere! Baths are a frequent necessity. My daughters always would dig, only encouraged by their brother, who would always be on a new emphatic hunt for “rocks” hiding beneath our lawn and play set.
The only way to get by is to embrace it, I know! I knew the perfect picture book to go along with dirt: I’m a Dirty Dinosaur! by Janeen Brian and Ann James. This book set us up for our own muddy painting craft
I’m a Dirty Dinosaur! by Janeen Brian and Ann James (Kane Miller, 2014) is a short rhyming story about a funny dinosaur that gets dirty as he plays outside. The pages are stronger-than-paper , which feels like a coated plastic, and so it is a perfect book for a young child that might accidently take it to a muddy place himself! They don't rip easily either.
One thing I love about I’m a Dirty Dinosaur is that as the dinosaur gets progressively dirtier, he spends time relishing in the mess: first his messy feet, then his messy hands, and then his messy tummy, and so forth. My preschool-aged kids loved to act out the simple rhythmic pages for each messy part of the Dino.
The most clever part of the simple art in this book is that the dirty brown that covers this adorable dinosaur in each picture is actually mud! The author's note explains how she did this. So, to extend the fun, we decided to make our own mud paintings.
To do our mud painting, we waited for a sunny day and took the fun outside! This was a good choice, because it was a lot less stressful to me (the mess adverse) to know that any stray mud would be in its natural environment.
First, we first drew our image with markers, just as the illustrator in the book did. Although we used Crayola markers, I would have been better to use something more permanent, like Sharpie. The bright, non-washable colors of Sharpie will pop off the white paper. I always hesitate to give Sharpies to very young kids, though. so we went the safe route for these pictures.
Then, we collected some dirt from the yard, watered it down, and painted over our images with the mud!
Our mud paintings were done on card stock, but even this paper feels quite thin. We definitely needed a thicker canvas. When we redo this project, we'll have to consider using a type of canvas or cardboard instead.
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My older daughter drew a collection of shapes and letters on her page, but whatever she intended to draw has been obliterated by her enthusiasm for the mud painting portion of the activity!
I drew an image of myself, because it would be fun to get all dirty. I was the only one who used my fingers. (Can I tell you the truth, though? I hate to get messy and couldn’t wait to wash my hands!!)
My son was the most creative. Although he did not want to draw a dinosaur, he had a perfect set of friends in mind: a pig and his friend turtle! I love his careful end result.
It took time for the mud to dry on the page, and the pages were quite heavy. I did warn them that we were not going to keep the mud art for long hanging out around our house. The wonders of taking a picture of art so we don't have to keep it all!
Nevertheless, the creation process was a fun one, and as we reread I’m a Dirty Dinosaur now, my kids will certainly recall her own dirty painting too!
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