The Painting Plates art activity was super fun during our week of soapy water activities with Mother Goose Time’s Bubbles, Boats and Floats theme. Who knew making dirty dish art would be a thing?! Dirty dishes are a reality in everyone’s life so it just makes sense that we make dirty dish art.
Dirty Dish Paper Plate Art
Using a small paper plate to hold the paint colors, we used a wooden disposable fork to dip in the paint and create designs on the larger paper plate. When squeezing out the paint onto the plates, my group, ages 2-5, watched and we talked about what each color could represent.
- Blue=blueberries
- Red=ketchup
- Yellow=mustard
- Green= peas
- orange= carrots
This is also a great time to talk about healthy foods. Another suggestion to go introduce this activity is to record the children’s answers in colored ink on a large piece of paper. 
It’s important for children to experience painting with different tools. When allowed to explore a range of painting tools, children learn about creativity, problem-solving and develop fine motor skills in a greater measure. Fine motor skills affect future writing abilities.
It’s interesting to paint with a wooden fork. The fork makes different designs and when you mix the paint together, you get different colors! This is an example of process art. In the end, they look like dirty dishes! So fun! I used hot glue to glue the fork onto the plate. Dirty plates never looked so good!
More Fun Soapy Water Play
- Rooms in a House
- Waiter, Waiter Preschool Restaurant Dramatic Play
- Animal Wash Soapy Sensory Play
- Little People Car Wash Water Play
- Sponges in the Water Table