Playgroup art and craft: Marble painting

K's school was throwing out a pile of shallow plastic tubs so I took a few for playgroup. Today we used them to do marble painting (not to be confused with marbling, which is much more complicated - although this kid-friendly version looks good). Marble painting simply involves putting some blobs of paint on a large sheet of paper placed inside a plastic tub, dropping a few marbles on top and tipping it this way and that to let the marbles run through the paint. It works best if you thin the paint with a little water, so the marbles can move through it more easily.

As the marbles roll they leave tracks and lines on the paper, mixing up the colours in interesting ways. The children enjoyed manoeuvring the tubs and watching the lines appear.

It's a fun and novel art activity, and you don't even need to wear a smock!