The division of labor around these here blog parts is that Daisy writes for Thursday/Friday and I write for Monday/Tuesday, which usually happens on Sunday/Monday evening respectfully. Only yesterday was my seven year anniversary and the night before it was my turn to teach Wee School, my neighborhood's free parent run summer school for tots, and I have been feeling really sick, so I skipped the writing, figuring the five of you would understand. Unfortunately, Wee School got rained out. And I was totally bummed. I had 8+ cups of fresh sidewalk finger paint and a quart of fresh frozen wacky sidewalk chalk plus all the fun water activities I had planned, and no one was going to see it. Then I was all...OMG I have a blog. (Literally, that is exactly what I thought. Total weirdo, I know.) So sweet blog readers, behold, I present all five of you with sidewalk finger paint!
We will start with the easy one, what I am calling wacky frozen chalk. I got the idea here. (She is awesome by the way, lots of great ideas for sensory play.) then I froze it in my water bottle ice tray so it would be chalk shaped.
They wrote ok frozen, and much better as they melted. Then once they are melted you get cold colorful oobleck, which is awesome. (My Personal Assistant did not agree. I can't tell if his adversion was to the cold, or the messiness, or the fact that it wasn't totally his idea.) Mmmmmm. Oobleck. (The Hubster thinks I am making up this word. I am not. It's a thing I swear.)
The paint was not as easy, but it will be for you. I wanted a finger paint consistency, but the recipes I found were all water color like. So here's my version:
- 3/4 Cup Corn Starch
- 1 Cup Flour
- 2 1/4 Cup Water
- Food coloring
Mix flour and corn starch. Add food coloring to water, then add liquids slowly to the flour mix. Whisk together until it resembles thin pancake batter.
I found it was easier to get even coloring if I added the food coloring to the water first, but...this makes a LOT of each color. Great for a crowd, maybe not so great for just a few. If you make the batter then divide and add food coloring, it will be fine, you may just need to mix it a bit more.
This was SO FUN! (For me, the Personal Assistant does not like things that are "messy" or "slippery", but eventually he warmed up. As long as he was allowed to hold onto his apple.)
We used a ratty paint brush, a ladle, a whisk and hands and feet to paint. We even painted a "track" with some houses for his cars. (Here's hoping we don't get too much rain tonight.) The paint "cans" are some styrofoam shipping containers for wine bottles that the Hubster brought home from work. I thought they were neat, so I set them aside, they were perfect for this, but any bucket would work.
This was really messy, but so fun. We will definitely be keeping this in the play book.
Jen
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