Whether for New Year’s Eve, Bonfire Night, or 4th July, Fireworks always make a fun theme for art work with the kids.
Today we are sharing a super fun Fireworks craft painting activity that’s brilliant for kids of all ages.
We first tried out spinning top painting a while back, with a huge cardboard canvas in our living room. It is pretty messy, but a lot of fun!
I had been thinking that the spinning top painting would be great for fireworks pictures when done on a black background, so of course we had to give it a go, and we had such a great time with this activity.
For these pictures, we did the spinning top painting on a smaller scale with black card and small spinning tops, the type that you can get inside Christmas crackers or in the party bag filler section of the grocery store.
The best thing about these little plastic spinning tops is that they are totally washable, so you can just rinse them off after this activity and they will be ready too use over and over again. I wouldn’t recommend using expensive wooden spinning tops. for this activity, or anything that will be ruined if the paint does not come out – as there is always a risk even with washable children’s paint.
Just be aware that when you spin the tops fast, the paint will fly around a bit and may go further than the page, so cover the area thoroughly with some newspaper or oil cloth if you’re worried about that.
Luckily our kitchen table wipes clean very easily, so I didn’t mind too much!
You can also take the activity outdoors, to minimise mess and any potential paint splatter inside the home.
Benefits and Learning
Painting with spinning tops is a great way to explore motion, and is a really fun way to paint for active kids.
This is a really nice open ended process based art project for children. Let the kids lead the way, and go whichever direction they would like with the fireworks pictures and you will see some really cool results.
This activity ties in really well for any theme or celebration that features fireworks – Bonfire Night, Diwali, New Year’s Eve or 4th July.
It is also a really fun way for kids use their creativity.
Painting with a spinning top allows you to experiment with motion, force, and speed – exploring these concepts in a hands on active way.
Supplies for Spinning Top Fireworks Art
All you need is:
- Black card or paper
- Coloured paint (we used washable children’s ready mixed poster paint)
- Small spinning tops, the kind you can buy as party bag toys.
In the pictures, you’ll see we also used glitter glue but it didn’t spin so well like the paint, so I would suggest leaving that out and just sprinkling some loose glitter on after wards or adding a few smaller squeezes of glitter glue at the end
Get the kids to drop a few splodges of paint all over the page, and then when you have a few fairly evenly spread splodges, they can be let loose with the spinners.
Start off the spinner in the centre of each of the paint splodges and watch the colours spin and spread, shooting over the page like a firework! They can keep going as long as they like and see how the colours mix together and make a cool effect.
For extra fireworks atmosphere, you could play some fireworks music or sound effects while working on these, to help the kids really get into it!
More Fireworks Crafts and Activities
Free Printable Fireworks Coloring Pages for Kids
Fireworks Pictures with Chalk Markers
Coloured Sand Fireworks Pictures
New Year’s Eve Fireworks Painting
Fireworks Craft Ideas (bonfire night)
More New Year’s Eve Ideas
Free Printable Calendar for Kids to Decorate
New Years Eve Activities for Kids
Cake Ideas for a New Years Eve Party
Make Your Own New Year T-Shirt
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Follow Anna – In The Playroom’s board New Years Eve on Pinterest.
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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.
Such a lovely idea