If you’ve ever done marble painting with little ones, you know how messy it can be. I used to do it anyway, because it was so fun. But, oh boy.

At the beginning of my teaching career, I was truly Master of the Marble Mess. I used box lids for paint trays and ended up with paint on the tables, chairs, myself, the kids and the wall-to-wall carpet. (That’s another story!)

So, I began to use deeper boxes. But these proved troublesome too, being hard for little hands and arms to manipulate.

Then an idea came to me as I was eating lunch one day. See-through plastic containers with lids would be just the right size … and just the right amount of CLOSED. I tried it and, wow! It worked great! The once-wild marbles no longer go flinging onto table, chair and floor.

The kids can see their marbles as they click, click, click over the paper and against the sides of the containers. The painting effects are just wonderful, and it really is fun to watch and listen as the kids concentrate on their task.

If you’ve never done this fun activity, all you need is some tempera paint, a tight-lidded sandwich container, a marble and piece of paper. Have fun! 🙂