Tactile Tiger Portraits
This is a simple. fun, tiger themed, art activity that can be done with younger children and older children alike. This tiger art activity for toddlers was inspired by international Tiger Day. We dug out one of M’s favourite books: ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’ and linked our activities to it. I had originally planned to create the whole image with tissue paper. However the tissue paper that I ordered (and I did not check when it arrived) did not contain any orange. So I improvised and used red lentils instead. These were such a hit with F that I am pleased I used them for our tiger art activity!
Set up
We often use paper plate, like these from Amazon, for various crafts and thought they would make the perfect shape for a tiger face. So the only thing I did before the girls woke up was draw the outline of the tiger face onto the paper plates. Once M was awake from her nap, I got her to help begin to tear and scrunch the black tissue paper up. Tearing and scrunching paper up is such a good work out for those fine motor skills. As I mentioned above the lentils were a last minute replacement, so use whatever you have at home; tissue paper or coloured paper would both work well.
As soon as F saw the lentils she was desperate to get her little hands in them. I hadn’t expected her to love the feel of them quite as much as she did. She instantly started sprinkling them all over her plate. I had to convince her to halt momentarily so that we could put some glue on her plate first. And then she dumped handful after handful onto her tigers face. M on the other had was extremely careful. She added all of her black tissue paper first before moving onto the lentils.
I managed to convince F to add some black tissue paper. But that was “Mamma’s” job. She was only interested in the lentils. M continued to studiously work on her tiger artwork and F had finished long before her. They were both incredibly proud of what they had created. Their tiger portraits were very impressive! They were desperate to show Daddy when he got home. F’s love of the lentils has definitely inspired me to do some more activities with them. All in all a simple but very effective tiger themed art activity that was a hit with toddlers and older children too.