Sidewalk Chalk Painting = SO FUN!!!!!!

We have been LOVING the weather this week!

I hope it is here to stay.

Yesterday, we made Sidewalk Chalk Paint.

The kids had a BLAST!!! (and so did I...)

I had boughten some from Crayola last year and Peighton and I searched and searched for it again but never did find it.

Not sure if they still sell it or not but we won't be buying it again now that we know we can make our own!

I had seen the recipe on Pinterest and knew we'd be trying it out.

Here is the super hard recipe:

1 cup water

1 cup cornstarch

And some food coloring-that's IT!!!!!

The colors were very bright!

They dug right in and soon had the sidewalk covered.

Even when the colors mixed they were still really pretty.

I'm sure we'll be doing this over and over this summer!

And since it was so easy I know I won't mind!



Tickle Sticks

Peighton and I LOVE cooking together.

So that means we have quite a few kid cookbooks at our house.

They are usually very easy recipes and most have the directions in both pictures and words.

I love it because so much LEARNING goes on and she doesn't even know it.

One of our faves is a Sesame Street one with recipes from Elmo, Cookie, Zoe and Big Bird.

Elmo's recipes are all red. She thinks that's funny.

Yesterday she chose his Tickle Sticks recipe.

I think she mostly liked the name of it.

Super easy and you really only need two things:

Watermelon

Yogurt

Cut the watermelon into sticks and dip into the yogurt.

What a great summer treat for a hot day!

We heart PEEPS!

Peighton shares my love for peeps.

We both get excited when we see them in the store!

Today, we decided to make "Peep Pops."

I've seen this done in several different ways on many different blogs.

They are adorable no matter how you do it!

We made Rice Krispie Bars and cut them into squares after they cooled.

Then I sliced a Peep in half....and we proceeded to eat the backside of each peep....

I melted some pink chocolate leftover from another project and we used that as our "glue" to stick the Peep to the Rice Krispie.

And of course, nothing is complete without sprinkles around here!

We put sticks in them just for fun but they could be made without.

She sprinkled until she thought they were "cute enough."

And here's what we got!

Super cute.

And of course super yummy!

Shiny Milk Paint

Just a fun one we like to do!  And I love that we can just go to the pantry to do this one-no crazy ingredients needed!

Shiny Milk Paint

Sweetened Condensed Milk

Food Coloring

Mix them together in a bowl or tight fitting lid.

When the paint dries it will be a nice and shiny!

Peighton was in chrage of putting in the food coloring which is how we ended up with these colors!

She was too busy multitasking with her valentine sucker to take a picture!

Flubber

More negative temperatures (and even worse wind chills) means a messy afternoon project to keep the big one happy!

This is one we've made before with enormous approval.  Flubber.

It's gooey.  It's wet.  It's slimy.  It's fabulously fun.

Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 c glue
4T Borax (found with the laundry detergent)
4 C water

Mix 2 cups water and the glue in a bowl.
In a separate bowl mix 2 c water and the borax.
After it's dissolved pour the borax mixture a little at a time into the glue mixture and stir.
You might not need all the borax mixture.

Squish it, poke it, stick stuff in it, watch it ooze through your fingers.  It's fabulous.

A note that was with the recipe in my book: vinegar will take flubber out of clothes and mayo will take it out of hair-who knew!!!!  We did not get it on our clothes or hair while we played with it but something to tuck away for future reference I guess!!!!

She was making a "recipe" here. 

My Mini Picasso

Today's activity was making shampoo paint and then painting beautiful pictures with it!  Peighton loves any chance to paint. She would literally paint all day if I let her.  She is currently taking a painting class at our local rec center and LOVES it!  She comes home covered in paint (last week I found paint in her ear...) but I guess that just means she was using every ounce of creativity she possesses. 

The recipe was super easy and Peighton was able to do most of it.  The teacher in me loves the math lessons that are worked in when we have to measure things! 

Shampoo Paint Recipe

3 t. shampoo (we used wild watermelon shampoo!)

small amount of water (not sure how much we really used, I just started with a few teaspoons at a time.)

kitchen mixer

food coloring

Whip the shampoo and the water until it is foamy. 

This was really fun and we will for sure be doing this again.  It made a great activity for a cold winter day in Iowa.  

It was a lovely foamy texture and our kitchen smelled very watermelon-y!

This is where Mr. Preston decided he needed to be during our painting time!  I'm sure he is going to be in on the action in no time!