The toddler twosome love ‘cooking’ outdoors, painting with warm cornflour paint and naming colours at the moment so I thought why not combine all 3 for some messy fun outside!
First I made up a fresh batch of Homemade Cornflour Paint, dropped a little into a few bowls, set out some small and large spoons, measuring cups and trays and then stood back to see what they would do! It was most definitely an invitation to play messy!
I made the texture of this batch of cornflour paint quite runny yet still firm enough for scooping up with spoons……I left it a little warm which made for a lovely sensory experience too!
They immediately started filling the cupcake trays and transferring their ‘mix’ to different bowls….great for those emerging fine motor skills of course!
Then I began sprinkling a little edicol dye over the top of a few of the bowls and encouraged the girls to stir and mix until they began too see a colour!
It was lovely to hear them trying to identify the colours and seeing their faces as the colours deepened the more they stirred and mixed!
The addition of the colour added a whole new dimension to the activity and they began stirring, scooping and transferring to different bowls…
You only need the barest of sprinkles to get a rich vibrant colour and it was great to let the girls control which bowl and colour they wanted to mix and ‘discover’!
Cupcakes to pour……
And colours to mix….
After colour was added to all the white bowls they began to start mixing colours which gave us more to identify and talk about…they really were quite pleased with their efforts!
Note the size 3 sticker on Tara’s shirt…..she has worn that with such pride all day (just the sticker off a new shirt) I just love the simplicity and joy of the toddler mind sometimes!
I let them sprinkle a little edicol dye onto their cupcakes using little glitter shakers….
Then back to a little more ‘cookings’!
Ruby decided it was just too tempting and began squishing and hand painting….
It really was a colourful activity that kept them busy for ages….I added a bucket of water which they used to dip their measuirng cups into and practise pouring into bowls…
Such concentration ……these girls just love to make a mess and cook so this was just such a fun activity…although definitely an outside one!
We’ll definitely do it again as I loved the opportunities it provided to name and talk about the colours, experiment with mixing their own colours to make new ones such as green, and practise eye hand coordination and fine motor skills with the pouring, scooping and stirring!
The best part is that the paint doesn’t stain and is edible (although not tasty!) so we just hosed everything and stripped off shirts before coming back inside. Most of the bowls of paint I saved to do some fingerpainting with another day. It will keep in the fridge for a week before beginning to get smelly.
Ah….I do love a low cost yet fun activity….don’t you?
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Oh, another great idea. We are trying to learn colours too. I keep meaning to ask – where do you buy edicol dye from?
Well….i was still using the stash i ‘borrowed’from my days working in child care hehe…but recently ordered from here as they were one of the few places that sell it in small containers!Lasts for ages as you only need half a teaspoon! http://www.edartsupplies.com.au/products/227-edicol-dye-powder-50g
Wow that looks like so much fun. I think even I would like squishing it through my fingers. You are such a great mum. I cannot believe that you could ever doubt what a fantastic job you are doing with your girls. One day when I have kids I will be going back through all your great play ideas.
This looks like fun! Thanks for sharing!
http://twilsonismakingthemostoftoday.blogspot.com/
Is corn flour what we call cornstarch?
I believe so!
Totally cute. I used to line up my 4 children with buckets of water with food colouring in them & pastry brushes to paint the back fence, they’d do it for HOURS. So much free fun to do out there at home, love Posie
Jodie I LOVE this! R is very into colour mixing as well and the cornflour paint would be perfect for his sensitive skin. Pinning this!
Thanks for pinning Ness…we seriously love our cornflour paint here…Ruby has sensitive skin too and no problems with this one!
This is just the kind of thing I love doing with my buddies! I think I have a plan.
This looks super messy and super fun!!
I love the colour-mixing the most.
Thanks for the cornflour paint recipe too.
Every week your posts are full of colour and mess! I just love it! You are such a fun mum Jodie!
Thanks Penny…what a lovely comment…i do try to make a mess daily, lol!
Yummy gooey fun! Love it. Pinned.
Thanks so much for the reminder. There are so many fabulous things to do out there that it’s so easy to forget some of the simple but oh so super fun activities like cornflour paint. We’d love this. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Lovely colourful fun! I have pinned this to our board.
Thanks for linking to the Sunday showcase
I included this in my toddler play roundup for the WKC this week. 🙂