homemade sidewalk paint

This activity is so fun, easy, and inexpensive.  The kids loved mixing up their paints and then creating their masterpieces in the driveway.

Materials needed:

Cornstarch

water

food coloring

container with lid

Directions:

Scoop a few spoonfuls of cornstarch into a container.  Add water and stir until it is the consistency you wish for  ( You may have to add more cornstarch and/or water until it is the desired thickness).  Add a few drops of food coloring and stir.

The paint dries almost immediately once it is painted on the concrete.  You can cover any leftover paint with your lid for your next painting adventure!  Just add water if it thickens up before the next use.

leafy art

I'm finally back to posting kid's projects. We've had a lot of fun doing Thanksgiving/Fall art lately!

Yesterday we enjoyed making leafy art. This is very messy.....We crunched up our leaves and decorated our paper out in the garage. That made the cleanup much easier. The kids LOVED doing this. This is an easy project you can do with all ages.

Materials needed:
Dried leaves
Bowl
Paper
Squeeze Glue

Directions:
Collect leaves and let completely dry if needed. Crumble up leaves over a bowl or container. Squirt a "glue design" on paper. Shake the dried leaves over the design (similar to shaking glitter). Shake off excess leaves and let dry.

messy, mushy, mud

This activitiy is not for the neat-freak mom. It WILL make a mess! But the kids loved it. I told them they were scientists and we would mix all of these items together to see if we could make "mud".



Materials:
aluminum or plastic container with lid (to stir and put mud in)
spoon
wet paper towel or washcloth (to clean up)

Mix the following together (or for more fun, let the kids do it. My 3 year old and 22 month old did fine with it).
1/2 cup cold water
1 TBS oil
2 TBS brown paint (washable is best)
1/2 cup salt
1 TBS cornstarch
Gradually add 1 1/2 cups of flour. You can add more oil and paint if mixture ends up too dry.

My kids loved this "science" activity. We stored the mud in containers to play with later. Have fun!!

stamping fun

Materials:
Several large ink pads
Sheets of paper
Several patterns of stamps

This is a simple and fun activity that you can do anytime. The kids love it when I pull out the stamps!



You can buy the large stamps several places. My mom got this set with the inkpads from Oriental Trading Company. These are the beach theme stamps. I saw more fun ones in the catalog that I may order later!

fireworks

You can do this simple and MESSY activity to celebrate the 4th!

Materials:
* Dark construction paper
* Glitter glue sticks

Help the kids make the fireworks by squirting the glitter glue on the paper and showing them how to spread it out like a star or "fireworks". Then let them go at it and have fun. It takes about a day to dry so be sure to find a place to store it while it dries (out of reach of curious hands).

Tip: I let them do this with their shirts off.....so I had less glitter in the washing machine.

shaving cream fun

Materials needed: shaving cream
a flat surface
lots of water and towels for clean up

This is a fun activity to practice letters and numbers.

Find a flat surface ( I prefer outside so I can just waterhose the mess away) and cover with shaving cream. Practice drawing in the cream and have a blast making a mess!!
I also let the kids stamp some letters in the cream with letter molds. You could extend this activity by adding food coloring to the cream. I may do that when we start talking about the color wheel.