Finger Painting Fun!

Finger painting is always fun until the little one eats it and we have to call poison control to find out if she's going to die. To be sure this doesn't happen, you can either look for non-toxic paint and hope that the paint doesn't get recalled later or you can make your own edible finger paint. I have used several different recipes and I have two that I like the most. One of them is so easy, it can hardly be called a recipe. The only thing I don't like about it, is it tends to be a bit runny. Just use a small can of evaporated milk and divide it up into as many containers as colors you need. (Did that make sense?) If you want 6 colors then you will need to divide the evaporated milk into 6 containers. Then you just have to add the food coloring and stir. Voila! Finger paint that tastes pretty yummy. 

I wanted a finger paint that was a little bit thicker and found this great recipe on this blog. It turned out perfect! 

With Independence Day coming up, we thought it would be fun to paint fireworks. First we had to make the paint. This took a little bit of cooking. The recipe didn't tell us what heat setting to use but we found that a higher setting works a lot better and a bit faster. Just don't forget to keep stirring. Blue didn't mind taking on the job. 

We decided to use muffin tins instead of plastic cups or containers to hold our paint. The colors in the picture don't look as brilliant as they would if they were in plastic cups.

After only a few minutes of preparation. Painting finally ensued. My little kids were having so much fun a couple of my older kids decided to join them. 

Even Gremlin got involved. She ended up eating some of the paint and wasn't disappointed. She quite enjoyed it and had a pretty green tongue afterwards. 

Luke had a hard time deciding what color to use. When asked he would say, "Ummm....blue!"  He really, really likes blue and wouldn't use any other color. He still insisted on washing his hands after every finger dip. 

Leia wasn't so willing to get her hands dirty, in the beginning. She was insisting on using a cotton swab. It wasn't until I agreed to have a bowl of water and hand towel, "washing station", next to her that she finally agreed to use her hands. From then on, there was no stopping her colorful creativity. 

My camera battery needed to be charged before I could get pictures of their magnificent creations. When we first started, I did get a snap shot of a couple. 

Finger paint is such a useful tool in many educational activities. If you have little ones, try having them write their letters, draw shapes or even paints pictures of the same color when learning their colors.   In my experience, fun learning is the kind that stays with you and the kind you don't forget.