Rock Painting: An Exploration of Cause and Effect
Rock Painting demonstrates planning around the interest of the children in painting. It also demonstrates how an educators can use an art and science activity to support fine motor development which supports early writing skills. All while being fun and hands on!
The Westport room children have an interest in painting and the teachers introduced a new medium to paint with,
water! The purpose of the activity is to experience the difference between painting with water and painting with
tempera paint. The questions the teachers asked the children were, does the water look different from painting with
colored paint? Does the rock look different when you use water on it? The activity captured many children’s interests
for a long time.
As the children painted, we observed that the water made the rocks darker in color and sometimes revealed stripes
of different colors! This was a great process for exploring cause and effect as well as working on fine motor
control necessary for holding writing utensils.