Ice Paint

Brian was gone last weekend so I decided that we needed to have some fun activities planned as we had no playdate scheduled nor did I want to take them to a play place on a weekend.  I scoured Pinterest for some good ideas.  The first thing we did was do some painting with ice paint.  The day before we prepped this activity.

I got my idea from Outlaw Mom.  It's really easy to do!  Just squirt paint in the bottom of an ice cube tray.  I used regular washable Crayola paints.  I did mix colors together with white to make various shades of a color or to make new colors.  Make sure to mix the colors together really well before adding water.  Then add water and stir.  I let my kids stir.  Put the tray in the freezer.  Before it gets too frozen, add popsicle sticks to make them like popsicles.  Make sure to do this early enough!  I had to crack through the top layer to get the popsicle stick in and the splashed paint on other colors.

The following day we took the tray and paper outside.  Here's what the paints look like.

At first they were hard to paint with.  You would only get a very narrow paint strip.  Here's Natalie's first painting that was done before the ice started to melt.  Noah figured out that it was easy to paint with the sides of the ice cubes rather than the bottoms and that would get more paint on the paper.

Here's Noah's first picture.

Once the ice started to melt you could really get lots of paint on your paper.  I had made a painting of various shades of blue and green to try to make waves.  Natalie decided to copy my painting.

Once the ice starts to really melt, you end up having to paint with your hands because the ice breaks apart and the popsicle stick falls out.

This is a messy activity but very fun!  I had a bucket of water on the driveway so the kids could wash their hands off if they got too messy.  They got some paint on their clothes but it's washable paint so that shouldn't be a problem.  We had to wash off their legs and arms before coming inside.  Maybe this activity should be done right before bath time!  I would definitely do this activity again!