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Unleash Your Child’s Creativity with Baby-Safe Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint

May 17, 2014 By Jelli 12 Comments

Keep your kids engaged in creative outdoor play for hours with simple baby-safe homemade sidewalk chalk paint. Unleash your child’s creativity and gain a little free time for your hot summer read this week. Whipping up a batch of this bright sidewalk paint is fast and cheap too!homemade-sidewalk-paint-recipeWe love painting ’round these parts. From pizza box painting to edible bathtub paints, my children love to get their hands on fun art projects for kids, the more mess, the more pleasure. Summer loved the sidewalk water painting activity from First Art and when I saw homemade sidewalk chalk paint on Pinterest we tried it at her water-themed birthday party. It was a mega-hit!Homemade {Edible} Sidewalk Chalk Paint | Jellibeanjournals.comMaking chalk paint is really easy. This stuff is completely baby-safe, since it’s an edible paint made from nothing but water, corn starch, and food coloring.  You can mix it up in a muffin tin, hand your child a paintbrush and let them discover their inner artist! Spoons, sponges, stampers, and cotton swabs also make great painting tools that can really draw out the sensory activity.homemade-sidewalk-paint-for-kids-2Use homemade chalk paint to add a semi-permanent foursquare grid or hopscotch squares to your driveway. It washes away easily with water and is an unexpectedly creative way to fit kids art activities into a birthday party, mom group meeting, or Sunday school curriculum.homemade-sidewalk-paint-for-kids-3Alright, enough chatter. Let’s paint!!

Baby-Safe Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Materials:

  • cornstarch
  • water
  • food coloring
  • muffin tin

Instructions:

Stir together water and cornstarch in a medium bowl until it’s smooth. Pour into the wells of the muffin tin and add a few drops of food coloring until you reach a bright rainbow shade. Dip in a brush and let watch your driveway come to life!

Be sure to keep the paint stirred as the starch will begin to settle to the bottom after a few minutes. Swirling the brush around in the well should do the trick.

For more hands-on learning and painting ideas for toddlers check out First Art. It’s available on Amazon (yep, that’s an affiliate link) and they give the “Look inside” option where you can glean tons of ideas just by checking out the generous number of pages they show you for free. I may or may not have done this before buying the book. Wink, wink.homemade-sidewalk-paint-recipe-2   Yep, I guess you can use this for toes too. Chalk paint pedi, anyone?homemade-sidewalk-paint-for-kids-4homemade-sidewalk-paint-for-kids-6 Just a note… this paint is bright, like sticks of sidewalk chalk bright. The photos here show the paint in a more watered-down shade because I was running low on cornstarch that day. Nevertheless, the kids had a blast and the paint did show up well.

Be sure to check out more of our kids playtime activities and follow my Tot School and Preschool Ideas board for even more creative learning activities for little ones.


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Filed Under: mommyhood Tagged With: Baby, kids, kids activities, learning, playtime activity

About Jelli

Jelli is a blogging veteran and avid baker who’s been selling sweets to feed her chocolate addiction for 8+ years. When the polka dotted apron’s hanging up, she’s a full-time mama to three kidlets enjoying the crazy days of motherhood and pumping out brownie recipes from her sunny Costa Rican kitchen.

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Comments

  1. Chelsea says

    May 17, 2014 at 11:48 am

    Thanks for this! Little J may not be quite ready to try it yet, but by the end of the summer I bet he would love doing this!! Pinned!

    Reply
    • Jelli says

      May 17, 2014 at 6:53 pm

      Chelsea, you know, I think I’d give it a try, even if you think he’s not ready, as long as he can sit up he’d probably enjoy dipping his fingers into the paint and smearing it around a piece of butcher paper or even the sidewalk. Water painting is a great activity for littler ones too. Just give them a container with water, a spoon or brush and let them splash it around on the concrete. Thanks so much for visiting.

      Reply
  2. Jennifer | The Deliberate Mom says

    May 18, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    This is such a delightful activity Jelli! I used to do this at the child care centre and completely forgot about it. Thanks for sharing and for reminding me of this.

    Wishing you a delightful day.
    xoxo

    Reply
    • Jelli says

      May 18, 2014 at 8:02 pm

      You bet, Jenn! We really had fun with it last week. In fact, my kids wanted to do it every day. To save me the mess we actually did some spray chalk paint a few times. Having it all contained in a squirt bottle was a fun (and less messy) spin on things. How fun that you used to work in child care! Do share your tips for taming two year-olds!! 😉

      Reply
  3. Mary Frances says

    May 19, 2014 at 9:18 am

    Honestly, I would love to play with homemade sidewalk paint as well! Its so fun to do with little kids 🙂 And you are an incredible photographer!

    Reply
    • Jelli says

      May 19, 2014 at 12:25 pm

      I do have fun painting with them, Mary Frances. I love art activities and think I have just as much fun (or even more!) than they do getting messy and spreading bright colors all over our sidewalk, hands, arms, clothes… 😉 Thanks for stopping by and for your kind compliment. I’ve still got a long way to go with photography but it’s a fun journey!

      Reply
  4. Mrs. AOK says

    May 19, 2014 at 7:23 pm

    Love this. Thank you for sharing via Mommy Monday!!
    XOXO

    Reply
  5. kristi@ishouldbemoppingthefloor says

    May 23, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    Such a fun idea, Jelli!

    Reply
    • Jelli says

      May 23, 2014 at 6:18 pm

      Thanks so much, Kristi! My kids and I all had fun with this one!

      Reply
  6. Ursula Rosien says

    May 27, 2014 at 10:40 pm

    Pinning! Our Summer break just started and SO looking for ideas to do with the kids 😉 Found you via three in three linky 😉
    Ursula @ kraft&mint blog
    http://kraftmint.com

    Reply
  7. Hindley says

    August 14, 2015 at 2:35 am

    Love this! Is it possible to turn these from liquid to solid format like chalk used in schools? It’s for a child center for migrant toddlers and children below 12. They tend to put chalks in their mouth and this is a brilliant solution. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Jelli says

      August 17, 2015 at 9:43 pm

      Hindley, this recipe isn’t for solid chalk, but here’s a great sidewalk chalk recipe that is! Hope you find something that works for you and the children.

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Jelli! I snagged the best guy around, birthed four tiny kidlets, scribble down too many dessert recipes, love Jesus, and grow veggies in my front yard. Read More…

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