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Puddle Painting — Outdoor Rainy Day Art

OneMommy — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 03:10:27 +0000

Spring means plenty of rain. And rain means puddles.

The warmer weather of spring also brings more opportunities for kids to get outside, even if it’s raining a little.

We have had lots of rain here these past couple weeks. Many of the storms have been thunderstorms, keeping us indoors, but on the days we could get out, we’ve had lots of fun puddle painting!

This colorful rainy day painting activity is super easy and fun to do.

The months of April and May tend to bring plenty of rain and mud. You may want to try mud painting with your kids, too.

Puddle Painting

This activity is perfect after a good rain. In fact, you can easily go out to do it while it’s still sprinkling.

Want to try it on a dry day? Use a garden hose or bucket of water to provide puddles for your artists.

Once you have found the perfect puddle, all you need is a little sidewalk chalk and creativity.

You have probably used wet sidewalk chalk before, it makes the colors more vivid. But when you are painting puddles you have a layer of water sitting there, causing the chalk to swirl and blend in a beautiful display of color.

It’s one of our favorite sidewalk chalk activities.

The pictures really don’t do it justice.

This simple activity of puddle painting had us busy for over an hour of much needed time outdoors this week.

Sidewalk Chalk Reading Game

OneMommy — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:23:06 +0000

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather lately! This past week I just couldn’t keep them cooped up inside, so we moved the learning outdoors with this simple sidewalk chalk outdoor reading game!

The game is very simple.

While they were running off some energy, chasing the puppy, I used sidewalk chalk to write a variety of CVC words (think 3 letter words with a vowel in the middle) all over the driveway.

Ways to Play the Reading Game:

We played our reading game several different ways over the next few days.

Game 1: The first time around I guided them by hand to different words and they took turns sounding out each CVC word.

Game 2: The second time we played we used a rock. They took turns tossing a small rock onto the words and then reading whichever word the rock landed on.

Game 3: Then we played a version where I called out a word and they raced to find it to stand on the word.

Game 4: Finally, they got out the squirt guns and after they read a word they got to squirt it. (This, by far, was their favorite version!)

With a bit of sidewalk chalk this outdoor reading game is a simple way to work on early reading skills.

More fun ways to learn at home:

The post Sidewalk Chalk Reading Game first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Awesome Fizzing Sidewalk Paint

OneMommy — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 03:28:46 +0000

Chances are that if you are a regular reader here, you’ve got a little one in your life and you enjoy finding new activities and crafts to do with them. Hey, me, too!

That’s why I was super excited to come home from our little trip to discover this awesome book waiting for me!

(I received a copy of 101 Kids Activities for review. All opinions are 100% mine. There are Amazon affiliate links in this post.)

101 Kids Activities That Are the Bestest, Funnest Ever!: The Entertainment Solution for Parents, Relatives & Babysitters!is jam-packed with great activities and crafts that are guaranteed to keep the cries of “I’m bored!” at bay.

As if that isn’t enough, the pictures are beautifully done and each activity comes with modifications for both younger and older kids. Love that!

The kids were as excited as I was when they saw the book, and in no time we were outside trying out the Fizzing Sidewalk Paint.

From 101 Kids Activities by Holly Homer and Rachel Miller, printed with permission of Page Street Publishing June 2014

This activity trumps ordinary sidewalk chalk with a little science magic by creating a chalk-based paint and then spritzing on a little fizz. It all starts with pH. When solutions that are pH base mix with an acid, action happens!

Materials

+ Large mixing bowl

+ 1 (1-pound [454 g]) box baking soda

+ ½ cup (63 g) cornstarch

+ Warm water

+ Several containers to hold the paint

+ Food coloring

+ Paintbrush(es)

+ Spray bottle filled with vinegar—1 per child

+ Buckets for cleanup

In a large mixing bowl, mix the baking soda and the cornstarch together. Add the warm (almost hot) water, stirring until it is the consistency of pancake batter. Split the recipe into several containers, adding the food coloring color of your choice to each.

Use the homemade paint to create a scene or flick it with a paintbrush into a modern masterpiece. It is best to work fast because the paint dries quickly (but can always be diluted with the addition of more warm water).

Once the painting is in place, it is time for something a little extra. Spray the artwork with the vinegar-filled bottle and watch what happens. Your artwork will sizzle and pop!

About Cleanup

A bucketful of water splashed across the art can make it disappear. Because that is fun, too, you might not want to wait for rain.

Modifications for Younger Kids

If a paintbrush is hard to negotiate in the paint, give your children a spoon and let them drip or drop spoonfuls of paint onto the pavement. For the little ones, be sure to fully supervise when they spray vinegar. It can sting little eyes.

Modifications for Older Kids

This activity is an easy way to work in a lesson on reactions between acids and base chemicals and talk about why this works. Maybe you can have your budding scientists adapt the recipe to see whether they can get bigger bubbles and more fizz in their next batch of paint.

TIP

Do you have a prewriting preschooler? Use a turkey baster to squirt vinegar at the paint. The grasping and squeezing helps strengthen finger muscles they will use when they are writing.

How we played with the Fizzing Sidewalk Paint

We chose to make three colors of sidewalk paint: green, purple, and red. (The possibilities are endless since it only takes a few drops of food coloring to create each color!)

We opted for the spoon approach instead of grabbing the paintbrushes. The kids LOVED using their spoons to drip the paint in swirls, puddles, and other shapes.

They also enjoyed feeling the paint with their fingers, finding that although it looked quite wet and squishy, when they pushed on it with their fingertips it felt solid. (Remember our gak experiment?)

Once they used all the paint up, it was time to make the artwork fizz!

We discovered our spray bottle wasn’t working (bummer!), but once we poured the vinegar into a small squirt bottle they were having a blast!

The kids and I can’t wait to try out some of the other wonderful ideas in the book this summer! Want to check it out for yourself? You can get your own copy of the book today on Amazon!

And, if you are looking for more fun outdoor activities for summer:

The post Awesome Fizzing Sidewalk Paint first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Fun with Sidewalk Chalk

OneMommy — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:14:01 +0000

The evenings in the summer are the perfect time to go outside and enjoy the evening as a family. For us this time usually involves some mix of toy cars, riding toys, water play, and sidewalk chalk.

You just can’t go wrong with sidewalk chalk!

Here are 10 fun ways to use sidewalk chalk.

1. Create a city with the chalk for your toy cars! (Or maybe your princess/Barbie dolls need somewhere to roam.)

2. Turn your kids into butterflies, superheroes, mermaids… The ideas are endless!

3. Use sidewalk chalk to work on ABC skills.

“Can you take 2 big steps to the letter A?” “Hop on over to letter C.”

4. Draw targets with chalk and work on your squirt gun shooting!

5. Who says you have to draw on the ground? Flower pots, tree trunks, an unusual rock… Anything could be a canvas for sidewalk chalk. It washes off easily with water!

6. Use the chalk to make a hopscotch game. (Or 4-square!)

7. Challenge the kids to draw a variety of funny feet with the sidewalk chalk.

Will your little one roar like a lion in lion feet? Or maybe they’ll quack like a duck in duck feet!

8. Sidewalk chalk + water = paint! My daughter especially likes to get the chalk wet. It gives it a paint-like consistency, which she then uses to decorate the brick walls, or herself when I’m not looking…

Yes, it was definitely bath night after this!

9. Use the chalk to become a scientist!

Draw a line around your shadow and then see how your shadow changes in 5-10 minutes. Or, find a shadow from another object to study. Perfect chance to talk about how the sun seems to move across the sky and how it affects shadows.

10. Draw a maze with the sidewalk chalk!

Can your little one find their way through it? Have a truck lover? He/She can drive their vehicle through the maze!

Got some other ideas of what to do with sidewalk chalk?

Leave a comment and share what you’ve done!

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