Semolina Painting for Kids

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We love activities that help children develop a scientific thinking while they craft and play. Today we are sharing with you an art project where we are painting with Semolina to learn about texture and contrast.

We love activities that our toddler can do with her seven year old brother. This activity was a hit with both of them. We will surely be including them to do with the cousins in summer. It is simple for toddlers to take part in and I found that my older kid loved playing around with the texture.

Semolina is the coarse, grainy substance made from durum wheat. It is used in making pasta, breakfast cereals, puddings, and couscous. This grainy substance is fantastic as a replacement for sand painting as it gives a similar texture. You can color it too the same way as you would color sand, pasta or rice. For today’s activity, we used semolina as is without any color.

This activity is a fantastic way to teach kids about textures. We love including a scientific twist to art and craft projects. It helps the children to learn observation while they are being creative. It also teaches curiosity to explore and go wild!

We started by painting on a plain paper plate to see what it looked liked. The white plate and semolina were too light. We then played with contrasts by coloring the plate in red. Once we had colored it, we let it dry and then drew with Elmer’s glue before spreading a layer of semolina on it. We played around with different shapes too.

What you need:

• Paper plates
• Acrylic paint
• Brushes
• Elmer’s glue
• Semolina -1cup

Procedure:

We first painted the paper plates in a base color. Semolina is a light sand colored substance. Although you can see it against the white of the plate, we found it looked better on a darker background. Let it dry a few minutes.

Using a fresh brush we drew on it using glue. The children may need help with writing words. It helped that my son wanted to little circles and stars. The toddler enjoyed making straight lines.

We then sprinkled semolina on it. Swirled the plates so that the extra would stick to it too. We removed the excess semolina and saw the drawings come alive!

Both the kids were delighted to see their drawings look so textured. We let the pictures dry while we worked on a few more.

Note: Make sure you apply the glue in a thick line for the semolina grains to stick well.

Have you ever tried Semolina painting? We have since played with this in more ways. Semolina painting is perfect as sensory play too. Share with us your thoughts? Join us on our Facebook Page for more Semolina painting ideas.

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