Monday was a HOT day here in Iowa, complete with a heat advisory and bright sun. The kids beat the heat (in the morning, the afternoon we spent indoors because it was too hot) with a Pools and Painting day. The kids had sooooo much fun! They even got to play in paint!
The kids had Painted Pancake Muffins for breakfast (the paint was actually food coloring). I put my pancake mix in muffin tins, put one drop of food coloring on top of the mix in each cup, twirl the colors around with a toothpick, and bake for 12 minutes at 375 degrees. One child asked "can we really eat paint now??" when I told them they were having painted pancake muffins. A few of the kids dipped their pancake muffins in syrup, others ate them plain.
Not paint or pool related, but the birds in the nest on the patio hatched and flew away, leaving the kids with a nest to poke at and explore. The kids were more interested in the pools than exploring the nest, but I'll have it sitting out the rest of the week for any child who wants to get a good look at it.
The bubble pool had a basketball hoop, a slide in the half deflated giraffe pool, and red water and boats in the water table.
Squirt gun painting round 3. The first time didn't go smoothly at all, the second time it worked great, and this time was tons of fun. Go to:
http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/06/painting-day.html to read about the kid's second squirt gun painting experience.
I came up with a new painting activity: Squirt Painting. The kids loved the Squirt Painting and so did I since I used the opportunity to fill those large bottles with all of the half used paints we have laying around. The bottles are actually part of a Snow Markers kit I bought at Target at the end of winter this year. They were regularly $4.99 a bottle with mixtures, but I scored them for less than a $1 a piece. Well worth it since I've found another use for these bottles. I filled the bottles with all of the half used paints I could find (notice the green has about 6 different colors of green mixed in) and a bit of water so it wouldn't get too thick to squirt out of the small nozzle.
After the kids made some cool looking pictures, there was plenty leftover for them to squirt the paints all over the patio. They got to squash through the paint too......one child even rolled in it! Oh the joys of being a kid!
Shaving Cream Body Paints. Shaving cream (Target has an excellent deal this week on personal care items, in case anyone is interested) and neon food coloring mixed together made the perfect body paint for the kids. They grabbed paint brushes (although at the end, they were mostly using their hands) and brushed it ALL over themselves and their swim gear. The best part about this: while the kids felt they were getting all messy, it's a breeze to hose off of their skin and swimming suits. I did have to remind them to keep it away from their eyes. My three minis do this all of the time during showers and baths, but I was shocked to see that some of the food coloring stayed on the kid's skin (mostly the pink). That's never happened, but it may have something to do with the fact that they ran around with the shaving cream paint all over their bodies in the warm sun for 45 minutes before they were ready to be hosed off!
Kool Aid Painting is always a favorite. The kids love the smell of these paints (Kool Aid, flour, and water), but no one attempted to taste it this time (there are previous posts about Kool Aid painting and the kids taste testing experiment).
Our last painting of the day was a new one I found on Pinterest called Skittles Painting. All we had to do was let Skittles sit in corn syrup for several hours (the kids separated the colors first) while the color coating came off of the Skittles and then it was time for some sticky finger painting. The corn syrup wasn't as bright as the kids or I liked, so we added one small drop of food coloring to each color to brighten it up a bit. I was really bummed that the paint had no smell to it....I was really expecting it to smell like Skittles but it did not. That didn't seem to matter one bit to the kids though! It was a bit too sticky for a couple of kids, who refused to paint with it, but the other kids enjoyed it and did a great job of keeping the sticky corn syrup to only one or two fingers.
The sticky skittles that the kids painted are still drying, so hopefully by the end of the week they'll be going home with the kidlets.
The painting results:
Squirt Gun Painting
Squirt Painting
Kool Aid Painting
We will definitely be scheduling another painting day when the humidity goes away (paint and humidity do not do well together!). Until then I'll be researching new things to paint with and new ways to paint it!
