We love painting on mirrors. It’s such a simple but fun sensory painting activity, and is one of our favourite sensory play ideas for all ages. I’ve posted about mirror painting before, but with Valentines Day around the corner we decided to mix up some paint with a Valentines theme and have some more mirror painting fun. It’s such an easy activity to adapt for each theme or season, by choosing colours to reflect the occasion.
We started with mixing up the colours together. Since Valentines Day is all about love and hearts we decided to mix red and white to make pink, and the children also wanted to add lots of glitter! Adding the paint themselves is an easy and fun way to work on colour mixing and for the children to see how adding more white or more red would affect the shade of the colour. Once they were happy with the colour, the mirror was ready as a big inviting empty canvas for them to paint on.
We have an Ikea Pysslingar mirror that we use for painting. It has no sharp edges and stores away easily in our playroom when not in use, so it works quite well for us but any spare mirror will do the job well – and perhaps an even bigger one would be great for collaborative painting with multiple children.
The paint does wash off easily once the activity is finished (using washable paint) so the mirror can be used multiple times for this activity.
Painting on a mirror is so much fun. The shiny surface gives a very different texture and effect than painting onto paper or canvas. The children always find it very relaxing and will stay at this activity for a long time, happily covering the whole mirror. If we had an even bigger mirror, I’m sure they would stay to cover the whole of that too.
Mirror painting gives lots of visual sensory input, and tactile input too with the feel of the paint brush against the smooth mirror. If you can do it outdoors in the summer, you’ll see the colours shining more brightly in the light, but unfortunately it’s super cold here in January and February, so we we were better off staying in doors. You can see some outdoors pictures in this starry night themed mirror painting that we did in the summer.
And here are a few more pinky glittery pictures from our Valentines themed mirror painting.
Isn’t it pretty?!
Supplies for this mirror painting activity
You can use any mirror or paint that you have in your home, but here are some if you need to order:
You might also like these
Valentines Sensory Activities for Kids
*affiliate links included
Don’t forget to pin this idea for later, or share with your friends on Facebook
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
What a fun idea! We’ve never tried painting on a mirror before but we definitely will! I love the extra sensory experience it adds.
This looks a great craft for kids. Thank you for linking up to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Party. I have pinned your post to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Board.
Love the idea of this! Must give it a go! Thank you for the idea!