Parents will always think of activities to keep their kids busy. Sometimes, you really don’t need to go far and spend so much. Some activities can just be done at home.

And so we decided to paint!

Here’s one of many possible activities for your kids. It’s safe even for kids and toddlers who are in the stage where they put everything in their mouth. The bigger kids can actually make their own paint themselves too with adult supervision of course.

Make Your Own Edible Paint

This means the paint you will use will be safe for kids to swallow just in case they accidentally do. But try to tell them not to put it in their mouths so that they will know that they cannot eat paint eventually.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups of water
• 1/2 cup conrstarch
• Food colorings – colors will depend on what you want. I chose primary colors red, yellow, and blue. It’s easy to mix them for other colors.

Procedure:

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan.
2. Warm until mixture thickens. Keep stirring.

3. Let it cool in separate containers then add a 1-3 drops of food colorings per color (depending how dark or light you want the colors to be) then mix.

4. Ready to paint! I put the paint in containers with cover so we can use them in coming days. You may also use cupcake baking pans or other types of containers you have available in your home. You can even put them in small cups.

Making the Paint Brushes

Found out we don’t have paint brushes in the house so I decided to make some for our painting session. You can use regular water color paint brushes too.

Looked in our kitchen and here’s what I ended up making out of wooden chopsticks and sponge (cut into strips for the tips of as brushes).

We just don’t know it, but this creative play has a lot of potential benefits for the young ones:

• Helps nurture the imagination
• Helps develop her fine motor skills
• Gets introduced to the paint’s soft texture
• Gets introduced to colors. Teach them the colors while you paint.
• Teaches simple cause and effect thinking skills

Play and paint with your children. The experience is different when you just watch them do it. They will imitate you and what you’re doing. Let your kids help during clean up time too. My baby loved wiping the floor with wet tissue towels after.

Remember, it’s not important to have a beautiful and perfect output. The process of painting is important and intangible developments that happen to the kids.

Enjoy the messy, artistic experience. You’re making memories!

“Every child is an artist.”- Pablo Picasso