Practice fine motor skills with this easy potato snowman art for kids.
Fine motor skills aren’t just important for beautiful handwriting, they are essential to brain growth and development. Did you know that physical movement creates new neuron growth in our brain?
Practicing fine motor skills should be fun for kids, and easy for mom. Remember, the more your child does with their own hands, the more benefits they get from doing projects. So let them help with setup, getting out and preparing supplies. And guide them to do as much of the clean up as possible.
If their hands are working, their brains are working too.
How to Paint a Snowman with a Potato
Table of Contents
Gather Supplies
Get out all of the supplies you will need.
Prepare the Potato
Cut the potato in half. Set one half aside. Cut the other half in half again, creating a 1/4 sized piece.
Paint Snowman Body
Pour a little white paint onto a small plate, or flat tray.
Tip: Ask the child to imagine what their snowman will look like on their paper, this can help them choose a good position for placing their potato prints.
Press the flat side of the half potato into the paint. Then press the potato onto the construction paper, repeat again above your first print to pain the next snowball. Add two more prints on the other side of the paper for the other snowman. Finally, add a print on top of each snowman for their head.
Tip: re-dip the potato in the white paint between each print so you have plenty of white paint for each part of your snowman.
The Hat
Get your smaller potato piece. Choose which of the flat sides you think will make a cute hat shape. Pour a little of your hat colored paint onto a dish, you can then either paint the flat side of your potato with the paintbrush, or dip the potato it into the paint. Press your potato, with the curved side towards the top of your paper, just above your snowman’s head. Repeat for the other snowman. Does the other snowman like a different color of hat?
Add Snow
Now you are ready to work on the background of your painting. Get out your Q-tip and dip into your white paint. Then press the Q-tip onto your paper. Now you have a little snowflake. Add lots of snowflakes to your snowman portrait.
Glue a Pom-Pom onto the Hat
Squeeze some glue onto your pom-pom, then put your pom-pom on top of the snowman’s hat.
Eyes & Nose
Glue on the googly eyes.
For the carrot nose, rinse and dry your small potato piece. Cut it to the length that you want the nose. Then paint the corner edge (where the two flat sides meet) with orange paint. Press the corner of the potato onto the paper right where you think that nose should be.
Optional: If you like pictures that sparkle add a little dot of glitter glue to the middle of each snowflake.
Supply:
- White paint
- Potato
- Colored paint for hat
- Construction paper
- Glue
- Pom-poms (No pom-poms? You can substitute with a do-a-dot marker)
- Glitter glue (optional)
- Wiggly eyes (if you don’t have these on hand, a dap of black paint on a Q-tip will work)
- Orange paint for nose
Tools:
- Q-tip
- Paintbrush
- Tray or plate for paint
Now it’s time to clean up! Enjoy your art.
Extending Snowman Art for Kids
Below you will find ideas to make different versions of this art work. Kids love repetition and learn a lot as redo projects with different colors, and ideas. Repeating a similar form of artwork throughout the length of a month also helps mom, you don’t need to did for new supplies or learn how to do new projects. Have fun and encourage your child to come up with their own style of snowman art.
Creative extensions:
- Make a snowwoman with a pink hat.
- Make a whole snow family.
- Get mini-potatoes and make a scene with tiny snowpeople.
- Use black paper and silver star stickers to make a night snowman picture.
- Add sparkle by using white glitter glue for the snowmen instead of plain paint.
- Add buttons to your snowmen with a Q-tip dipped in paint or dabs of glitter glue. Place three dots down the center of the middle snowball.
- Bling the hat with glitter glue dots or stripes.
