How well do Walmart paint dab markers work?
Do you ever have one of those moments where you have the greatest idea and you’re so excited because you know it’s going to work perfectly… and then it doesn’t? I had one of those moments awhile ago. I was at Walmart picking up a few things and I saw some Paint Dab Markers. These are Walmart’s version of Do-a-dot markers. The dollar store sells Bingo Markers that are also the same thing, but they are $1 per marker. Do-a-dot markers are about $2.50-$3 per marker.
So, there I was, looking at paint dab markers and they were only $6 for a pack of four! I figured I would try them out since they were cheaper than regular Do-a-dot Markers.
A few days later I got around to using them for the first time. They worked pretty well at first, but the blue marker leaked blue paint ALL over my hands and a bit on the package. I worried that it would affect the performance of the blue marker, but didn’t worry too much. Fast forward a week or two to when I actually needed the markers for preschool. The red and green worked great even though the green came out really fast. The yellow worked fine. The blue did not. The top was dried out and I had to squeeze the bottle pretty hard to get the paint to come out of the dabber. It did come out eventually, but not easily and it didn’t really ever look right. Fast forward to now. The red works okay, the green comes out fast, the yellow is drying out, and the blue is just annoying.
Cassidy: I used the dollar store bingo markers for the activities I’ve done. While they do the job, I feel like they let out too much paint and have potential to make a mess. Also, they do dry out when you put them away. It takes several good dabs before the paint starts flowing again. Another thing I was a little disappointed with was the color selection. The dollar store I went to had black, blue, green, orange and red. I was really hoping for a yellow so we could “mix” colors. I keep checking but haven’t seen any yet. Another thing I’m not totally sure about with these markers is their wash-ability. They seem pretty permanent but so far they haven’t gotten on clothes so we haven’t put them to the test. While these markers do work fairly well overall and are a good price, I think it would be worth the extra to get the actual paint dab markers.
I was so annoyed with these paint dab markers that I eventually got regular Do-a-dot markers. They were definitely worth the higher price. You can read my full review of them here. There are so many ways to use these fun dot markers. Check out the examples below or follow my Dot Marker Pages pinterest board for even more dot marker ideas.
Letter Do-a-dot pages from Letter of the Week curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler.
Use do-a-dot markers to complete these ABC Do-a-dot pages from Homeschool Creations (you have to scroll down the page a little to find the do-a-dot pages).
You can use do-a-dot markers to mark the letter in these letter hunt worksheets made by me. I will sometimes use a different color for uppercase and lowercase, but sometimes I’ll just have students use the same color. It really depends on their level.
Practice patterns using do-a-dot markers
Also, you can check out the Do-a-Dot Apostle pages that we did for our General Conference Activities!
The possibilities are really only limited to your imagination (and maybe how much time you have to look at Pinterest ;) ). Whether you use Paint Dab Markers, dollar store bingo markers, or Do-a-dot markers, your child is sure to enjoy these fun activities.