Candy Cane Puffy Paint

Another Christmas activity!! I think this one was equally fun for Monkey and me. 

We made some puffy paint that smelled like candy canes. Yum!

I got the idea for this activity here: http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2013/11/candy-cane-activities-candy-cane-puffy.html?m=1

Supplies: flour, salt, water, peppermint extract, food colouring, squeeze

bottles, ziploc bags, black construction paper, measuring cups 

I prepped this activity last night. I even asked Monkey if he wanted to help because he usually loves measuring out ingredients with me, but he was busy playing so I did it on my own. 

To make the puffy paint, mix equal parts flour, sugar, and water in a ziploc bag. I wanted three colours, so I put 1/4 cup of each ingredient in each bag. This ended up making a lot of paint, more than Monkey could use. 

I added food colouring to two of the bags, red and green, leaving the last bag white. In the past I have made this at school using paint instead, and I would recommend using paint over food colouring because it makes the colours much more vibrant. Finally, I added a few drops of peppermint extract to each bag so that the paint would smell like candy canes!! Then I sealed the bags and mixed it all up. 

Once the paint was all mixed up, I cut the corner of the ziploc bag and squeezed the paint into the bottles. 

Today I got the activity set out for Monkey. I wanted to use black construction paper because there would be a big contrast with the Christmas colours I made. 

Monkey loved squeezing the bottles. It's such a different way to paint conpared to using paint brushes, and it uses different muscles and a completely different technique. 

At first he just went all over the place with the colours, just making a beautiful, messy picture. For the most part, that's still where he is developmentally with his art. 

 

But then he asked me to draw something with him. First we drew a Christmas tree...

And then an Easter egg... 

He's been talking about Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny quite a bit in the past week and I junk he might be a bit confused about the holidays! He even made himself an Easter egg hunt yesterday. 

Then since I was having so much fun I did one last page myself. 

Mar