Recently on facebook, a viral post popped up that caught my attention. It showed children painting on a vertical easel made from a inverted table and plastic wrap. I tried it instantly! And not only did I love it, but, we found new creative artistic avenues while reading A House for Hermit crab and The Foolish Tortoise.

I turned our IKEA latt table over and wrapped the plastic wrap all around the legs, it was a little challenging, but not too much. I just hooked the first end to a leg and then continued to circle around the table. Here is our reproduction:

When painting we did not imitate Eric Carle’s figures, instead we focused on revisiting horizontal and vertical.

The first sheet in a House for Hermit Crab has shades of green and blue and a scribble going across the page. We repeated this same pattern, but on the plastic wrap. We used sponges to paint it on the wrap, and the ends of our paint brushes to make swirls horizontally across. Here is the first attempt:

Then we practiced Vertical by imitating the first sheet in The Foolish Tortoise. That page had light green and green with vertical squiggles. Here is that one:

I asked my toddler if she could pronounce vertical and horizontal while we painting.

We also discussed the words: consent, permission and respect with A House for Hermit Crab. Every time the crab asked a sea creature a question I would reinforce each term and explain it to my child. she was pretty annyoed and said, “I know, you said it last time.” We’ve read the book more than once.

Let me know in the comments if you practiced this or if you found different extensions for the books.

The books can be purchased by clicking on the images: (Affiliate links)