How to Paint - Swish or Dab?

Today we tried stencil painting.  Nothing out of the ordinary - well at least I thought so.  But soon realized that the children would need to use a different technique to paint than they were familiar with.

With regular paint they grab the brush and swish it back and forth on the paper.  But with stenciling they need to dab the brush up and down.

 When I put out the round sponge brushes I thought they would automatically try a new way.

Not for most of them.  The sponge brush doesn't glide easily across the stencil so there was a bit of frustration.  But once they saw how to dab they had it.

    

 
Early attempts.