🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 📅 Seasonal & Temporal Awareness — Decorating for different seasons and occasions builds temporal awareness — understanding that time passes in meaningful cycles — and connects children to the cultural rhythms that community belonging requires.
- 🏆 Pride in Environment — Children who participate in making their environment beautiful develop ownership of and investment in that space — taking better care of it and experiencing the satisfaction of living in a space they helped create.
- 🖐️ Fine Motor Skills — The detailed physical work of decorating — cutting paper precisely, placing items carefully, hanging things level — develops fine motor precision in a context that children find personally meaningful and motivating.
- 🌈 Color & Pattern Recognition — Choosing and combining colors and patterns develops color theory intuition, visual discrimination, and pattern recognition — skills that support art, mathematics (pattern sequences), and detailed visual processing.
Let your preschooler’s imagination swim free in her very own underwater world, where fish, turtles, sea horses, dolphins and a golden treasure chest await her. With its cool shades of blue, green and splashes of tropical coral, pink and yellow, this Mermaid Themed Bedroom is perfect for little girls who dream of adventures under the sea.
What You Will Need
Latex Paint in a medium shade of blue (enough to cover the walls)
Latex Paint in bright beach colors, such as turquoise, gold, coral, green, purple, and red
Ocean Themed Stamps or Stencils
Mermaid Wall Mural
Wallies© or other wall art
Faux Grass Skirt
How to Do it
Step One: Paint the Walls
Cover the walls with two coats of medium blue latex paint. You can also paint the ceiling, if desired. Next, using either the stamps or stencils, add fish, sea horses, starfish, dolphins, and seashells. Using emerald green paint, add stenciled seaweed at the base of the wall. To make it look more realistic, make each clump of seaweed a different height.
Step Two: Add the Mermaid
For a final addition to the walls, add a mermaid, using a rub-on mural, or paint-by-number mural. Add some shimmer to her tail with gold and metallic paint. Along with the mermaid, you can add a golden treasure chest.
Step Three: Select the Bedding
To keep this theme bright and refreshing, choose a vibrant shade of coral, yellow or pink for your preschoolers bedding. It will contrast nicely against the blue walls. If you are having trouble deciding which color to choose, pick a shade (or two) from the stamped designs on the walls.
Step Four: Select the Window Treatments
For a fun window treatment, try making a valance out of a faux grass skirt. These skirts can be purchased at party supply stores. Simply cut to the desired width, and length, and fasten to a curtain rod with hot glue. For privacy, pair this valance with plain white sheers or mini-blinds.
Step Five: Add the Accessories
The options for accessories are unlimited with this theme. Create a bed skirt, using the same grass skirt you used with for the window treatment. Simply cut it to size, and hot glue it to a plain bed skirt. Faux palm plants can add a tropical feel, when placed in corners. If you feel your preschool is up for the challenge, try setting up a small aquarium, or fish bowl. This will bring a little bit of the real underwater world to her bedroom. Switching plain dresser knobs for brightly colored glass knobs can act as dazzling jewels. Mermaids love looking into mirrors and brushing their hair. Be sure to present your little mermaid with her very own hand mirror and brush.
More Decorating Ideas
Dazzling Mirror Ball
A mirror ball may be synonymous with disco, but it also makes a great light fixture for an underwater world. The glittering panels will reflect throughout the room, mimicking light filtering through water.
Peel and Stick Applique's
If you would rather not paint or stencil details, try using these handy peel and stick appliques. These wall stickers are a quick and easy way to add detail to your preschooler’s bedroom. The best part… when your preschooler is ready for a new look in her bedroom, they are easy to remove.
Use these open-ended prompts to extend the learning during or after the activity:
There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. The goal is to keep the conversation going, model curious thinking, and give your child practice putting their experience into words.
