Long Weekend Fun

This holiday weekend is hot, hot, hot! And for the first time in my life, I am living with no AC of any kind. I have lived with central air, I have lived with window units in just a couple of rooms, and I have lived with a unit in just one room. But never lived without having the reassurance that there is somewhere to go to escape the heat.

To cool off in our yard, we decided to break out the very popular water table. I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to also try out sidewalk painting! It is very simple, and took all of our minds off the beating heat.

What you need:
Cornstarch
Water
Food Coloring
Paint Cups or other containers (yogurt containers or old empty play dough containers would be great!)
Small bowl to mix the water with the color
Paint brushes
a good piece of sidewalk or driveway

In a small bowl, mix about 3-4 tablespoons of water with 6-10 drops of the desired color of food coloring. I like to mix the color into the water first, because that makes the color very even, and easier to mix in. In the paint container, put about 2-3 tablespoons of cornstarch. You want there to be more water than cornstarch, however the consistency is up to your preferences. If you don't add enough water, the paint will be hard to spread on the sidewalk and will just kind of blob up. If you've ever made oobleck with your kids then you are already familiar with the reasons why! But you also don't want it to be too watery, because the paint will run all over and won't be much fun. At any rate, place the cornstarch into the container. Slowly add the colored water until you get a consistency that you like, stirring as you add. Repeat with as many colors as you wish to have. The kids had a lot of fun helping to make it.

Take it outside, and find your inner Picasso! Or, in my kids' case, Jackson Pollock!

As the sun dries the water from the mixture, the paint will start to look more chalk like.

A word of warning- food coloring WILL stain clothes. While making this and playing with it outside, I suggest the kids wear clothing that doesn't matter if it gets stained, or let them wear art shirts. This (just like sidewalk chalk) seems to be attracted to pants especially, so dress accordinlgy and don't send me an angry email that this ruined your child's best party clothes- I warned you! But this I can tell you, the FUN we had with this is worth every messy detail!