Water Fun: Frozen Finger Painting

The Lil Divas are fully enjoying our water themed week!

Each day they excitedly ask about what I have in store for them

& can't wait to get to the fun.

The other day we had a playdate with some dear friends &

the Lil Divas insisted we bring along our day's activity - Frozen Finger Painting!

I have seen this on many blogs lately & knew we had to try it!

There is no better time to play with something cold

than during this sizzling summer heat.

I opted to use our tempera paints versus food coloring or water colors.

I wanted to ensure bold colors on our canvas

and this seemed like the best way to do it.

What You Need:

 tempra paint in desired colors

(we also used some gold glitter paint)

ice cube tray(s)

water

pipette

stirrer or paintbrush for mixing

straws or wooden popsicle sticks



What We Did:

The Prep Work:

1. I poured paint into each section of the ice cube tray

2. Using the pipette I added water

(so as not to overflow & mix colors) and mixed.

3. I put the ice cube tray into the freezer for about 30mins.

4. I added the straw halves to each color and put back into the freezer overnight.

The next day they were nice & frozen! 

The Craft:

Note: I decided to use a thin canvas for this painting activity -

mostly because I was worried the paper would tear as the ice paint melted.

After driving in the hot car for 15-20 mins to get to our detination

our ice cube paints had begin to melt :(

We put it back into the freezer for a few mins. but the kids wanted to get outside.

We got their bathing suits on and went out

& to my dismay the ice paint was melty! :(

Here's the 1 picture I got of the actual ice paint being used

and even here you can see my Lil Diva had "painted" her hand

and was making a handprint on her canvas!

The Ice Painting That Wasn't:

Melty ice paint = straws falling off the already melting cubes.

Melty ice paint cubes = squished paint on little hands

and squished paint in little hands led to "cold"frozen finger painting instead!

We ended up with lots of this!

Not my original intention but we made the best of it

& the kids had fun with it anyway since MESS=FUN!



To show that this idea can be fun for children of all ages

I have to share with you that even my friend's 1 year old got in on the fun!

She was my "star" participant!

She LOVED getting the cold squishy paint on her hands

and smearing it all over the canvas!

She kept asking for more.

It was so cute & her finished product was awesome!



Here are the finished "fingerpaint" materpieces:

I have to admit I feel like I need to do this again. 

Even though the kids enjoyed it,

I can't help feeling like we still need to try our original idea of frozen painting.
So be on the look out for that because it will be coming!

Books:

Bern