I should state this first. In the 15 or so years I have spent educating young children, this is the messiest project I have ever undertaken. That’s second only to our muddy play date – which was also a messy and awesome good time.

In my opinion, it was entirely worth it.

A few years ago painting by rolling pumpkins was a big thing. It seemed like everywhere I looked that Fall I saw cute photos of kids rolling pumpkins around and one afternoon during nap time I sat in my kitchen surrounded by apples after our trip to the farm, I thought – Apples roll…

Ball vs. Apple Messy Paint Roll

There are seemingly endless ideas for exploring various STEM ideas with preschoolers and school aged kids, but fewer for toddler.

Toddlers however are just as curious as their older counterparts and STEM activities can be just as enjoyable – but they often look more like play since they won’t have the charts and graphs and deep conversations.

STEM with toddlers looks a lot like exploration, messy play, curious attention, and lots of questions.

My toddlers are very excited about throwing and rolling balls right now so I thought comparing the two, apples and balls, would be an intriguing experiment for them. The best science starts with curiosity.

This Ball vs. Apple experiment is simply looking at how to mostly round objects roll. This is super basic physics and so much fun to explore.

First. Explore the Materials.

I think a good place to start is to explore a little with a few balls and a few apples.

Let your toddler(s) experiment.

Then ask questions such as:

• How do they roll?
• How do they feel in your hand?
• What’s different? What’s the same?

Or verbalize what they’re doing to scaffold vocabulary by saying things such as:

• I see you watching the apple roll. Should we watch a ball roll next?
• Hmm…you look confused right now. Does the apple roll differently?

Then, add paint.

This is obviously the messy stage of this experiment and certainly a step you can step if you really want to – but I think if you’re prepared it is doable….but yeah. It’s messy.

Materials:

• Big Piece of Paper or large drop cloth
• Tempera (ie. washable) Paint
• Apples
• Balls – Washable or Old
• Paint tray or Plates

Clean Up Materials:

The key to messy play is to have a clean up plan! Know how you’re going to attack cleaning up and have it all ready to go before you introduce the messy activity.

In this case my clean up plan was:

• Contain the activity. We did it in one room with washable walls and floors and I removed all of the furniture. If you can do this outside on a deck or something you can spray down – even better.
• In the room I had prepared: bucket of water, wash clothes, wipes for faces
• I also had a clear path to the bathtub prepared so I could put my kids in their right away when we were done.
• AND – I think this was also key – I did the activity in a room that I could close off afterwards with baby gates so they wouldn’t just run right back into the paint when we were done. Later when they went down for nap I could put a podcast on and clean the room.

Activity Set Up:

Lay out a large piece of paper on the floor. A tarp or huge piece of cardboard would work too. This was their “target” for rolling the objects during the activity. (They missed a lot)

Then I laid out plastic plates with different colored paint and a few balls and apples nearby.

Then I striped them down to diapers (thank goodness their BumGenius diapers were so washable) and dressed myself in my paint clothes (aka clothes I am 100% okay with them hugging me in when they’re covered in paint).

I like to leave our activities open ended so I invited my toddlers over to see if they wanted to try rolling the balls and apples again, but this time in paint!

They had an absolute blast once they confirmed that yes indeed, mom was okay with them rolling and throwing both apples and balls covered in paint around the room.

I asked some questions like:

• You seem a little frustrated. That apple bounces differently than the ball does. Why do you think that is?

Mostly I just observed them and modeled trying different ways to paint with the balls and apples.

Once they had thoroughly explored not only the balls and apples, but also the paint with seemingly every other body part my son signed to me that he was “all done.” so we moved into our clean phase.

I used the water (that until that point had been sitting on the other side of the gate just out of their reach) to rinse my hands and dried them on a wash cloth. I used a wet washcloth to clean off my feet so I could walk to the bathroom without leaving tracks. Then I carried them each to the tub.

I had a fresh set of clothes for all of us in the bathroom – so once they were clean and happy (but still in the tub) I clean off a little at the sink while keeping an eye on them.

Later when they were happily eating and playing in their high chairs I tackled the mess. I got a good start before they wanted to get down and then I finished later when they went down for nap. It was a big mess.

I highly recommend approaching this activity outside or when you are in the state of mind to accept a big mess. However, I think this kind of messy, sensory, free, open ended play is just good fun and helpful in developing important sensory integration.