Christmas painting with candy canes and pinecones

I’ll admit that sometimes I dread pulling out the paint. I feel like I spend more time cleaning up than my kids actually spend painting. Nonetheless, I value what kids learn from engaging in the arts so I do make sure we paint from time to time. As part of my Christmas activities for kids posts, I’m sharing a Christmas activity we did that involved painting with candy canes and pine cones.

I find it fun to change up an activity by adding a thematic or seasonal element to it. In this case, a regular painting activity became more interesting by using candy canes and pine cones as painting tools.

I prepared this activity by laying out several trays with paint, a pine cone, a scented tree object (sadly, I have no idea what it is called), and a candy cane. (I’m not sure where the candy cane for the green tray went when I took this picture, but it reappeared in time for the activity :-).) I limited the kids to four colors: green, white, red, and black.