Avon's Bath Finger Paints

Seems like whenever I give Ethan a bath, we end up doing some sort of messy play. It's just so easy to do sensory play in the bathtub! I have his full attention, he is calm, and clean up is a breeze! Recently, I have discovered how to make playing with shaving cream even MORE exciting & enticing for Ethan....my coloring it & making it bath paint! For more on that, visit here.

Well, for Easter, my mom bought all of her grand kids Avon's Natural Kids Bath Finger Paints. They came in 3 colors....pink, blue & orange. Ethan didn't seem all that excited when he opened his gift from my mom, but when he took his bath that night & saw what these guys could do....it was an instant hit! It was goodbye shaving cream & hello Avon paint!


And I love them as well! They are more convenient to store & clean up than homemade stuff. So why not make your own & put in IN a squeeze bottle? Good point. Here's why.....

1. These paints have a slight smell to them. Not too much to overwhelm & irritate Ethan's sensitive nose, but just enough to add the element of smell to our play.

2. The cute labels! I love that the labels are fun & appeal to kids. Why do I like it for those with autism? The fruit characters have FACES on them! This could help with eye contact.....if it's not ours, maybe they can look at these cute little guys! And if they are too scary? Rip the label off! Easy solution!

3. They are part of a NATURAL line of products that Avon sells. For us this means that I know it won't irritate Ethan's sensitive skin while playing. A lot of our homemade things are hit & miss regarding irritation. This stuff doesn't effect him at all!

Ethan is VOLUNTARILY painting a smiley face on his belly!

4. I DO love the squeeze bottles! The squeeze bottles that I have purchased of which to add our own paint are a bit unpredictable. Sometimes you have to use a TON of muscle, other times it RUNS out, & many times it gets clogged.....and I end up spending much our time trying to hurry & fix it before Ethan loses it completely. You know how our kiddos are when something doesn't work the way they expect it! TRIGGER! These are just the right amount of squeezing as you can see in this picture of Ethan. He is having to use his arm muscles which are underdeveloped. Not only are they helping build his muscles, but this squeezing is filling Ethan's need to exert muscle work/energy outward...in a positive way. :0)

After several days of playing similarly with the new paint as we did our homemade paint, Ethan began to ask for other toys....aka....he's getting bored with just painting. So, Daddy (who usually does bath time) got out some of Ethan's Color Changing Cars. These are great for bath time since they were created for water play. Corey began to show Ethan that he could paint the cars with his new paint....well that went over HUGE! That has been the favored bath activity since the Avon paint has arrived.....until last night!

H-O-M-E

Corey has been working on a car, and it has taken over our garage since January. Since his Light It Up Blue car project is done, he is now back to focusing on getting this other car up & running....so Daddy & his friend, Matt, were working in the garage. Mommy was in charge of bath! Well, that teacher part of me always seems to come out during play. :0)

I didn't just paint the cars, I gave them each an initial & Ethan would tell me the letter. That was fun not very challenging for my child who is reading at a 1st grade level. So, I started making words out of the cars.







After a bit of that, I didn't want to be limited by only 4 letter words. So, we put the cars in their garage (storage container), and we just started using the side of the bathtub.



 

 

What a cutie...he's loving our new game!

Then, I realized that this kid would ROCK at Hangman. Now, I know of few people who don't like to call this game that name, but I don't know any other universal way to explain the game of which I'm referring. The first word was an easy one....can you guess?

 Did you get it right?! Ethan got it after 2 letters....but he couldn't tell me the correct letters. In his mind, he had to go through then ENTIRE alphabet.....A to Z.....in order.....until the blanks were filled in....it was so cute! Once his name was completely filled out, he said, "Ethan! That's ME!" as he pointed to himself (see last picture.)

By the end of our game, I was spelling 10 letter words.....and Ethan was eating it up. This paint is AWESOME! I ordered more through my mom....through her Avon Representative....and Mom dropped off the newest order today....and SOMEHOW there were some extra bottles in there. That's just like a Grandparent!

Want to see Ethan giggling & playing this game?! Watch the video! It's soooo fun!!!! (And if any of you are familiar with the PBS show Super Why, you will hear Ethan spelling like they do!)