Clubhouse Paint, Squirt Bottles Optional

This week's paint recipe was one we have been waiting to do because as simple as the recipe was, I was missing one key part of the process... the squirt bottle. Honestly, I have been keeping an eye out for the perfect squirt bottles for over a month now. Then, lo and behold, at the market this weekend I noticed a few I thought were perfect! Finally we had the green light for our Puffy Paint adventure.

The recipe for Puffy Paint is all over the internet, but I stumbled across it here awhile ago. Her pretty little squirt bottles all lined up in a row convinced me this would be a fun one to try. Preschoolers like to squeeze things, right?

With all that was needed lined up, we were ready to go.

The purpose of our weekly paint adventures is to let the kids make the actual paint. They look forward to what kind of paint they will be whipping up every week. So when the pots, spoons, and ingredients came out... they were excited to get started.

The recipe is simple. Equal parts of three ingredients. Add some color. Presto.

"Oooh, is this coffee paint again?!" (Um, no. No coffee in sight. We will definitely have to do the coffee paint again soon though, it was clearly a Clubhouse Favorite.)

Each child armed with their own "paint pot", measured out 1/2 cup of all 3 ingredients.

Flour.

Salt.

Water.

Stir.

I had a few different large spoons available for stirring, but these are Preschoolers...

The stirring went from being done with our spoons to being done with our hands.

All part of the process. Speaking of which, I love the name of the blog that we got this recipe from. Get Your Mess On. We do that every day at the Clubhouse. It's how we get our Learning on too ;)

Once the mixture was all mixed up, the kids got to pick their color.

Here is where I probably should have had a tablespoon or something available for them to measure.

I didn't though.

I just let them give it a good squeeze.

Some squeeze a little more than others though, and we ended up with varying amounts of paint in our squirt bottles once I filled them all up.








With the squirt bottles ready to go, I put out some cardboard and let them get to painting.

Some colors required a bit more squeeze on the bottles while painting.

Again, I think this is because of the varying amounts of the liquid paint added for color.

Next time, tablespoons. Check.

The squirt bottles were fun though,
and a new way for everyone to paint. 

At first, they were really enjoying the squirt factor...

and then...

Someone decided just dumping the paint out would be more fun.

Next time, screw the lids on tighter. Um, maybe even crazy glue them. Check.

Once I poured that smurf puddle back into the bottles I told the kiddos to keep the paint in the bottles. Easy enough.

The squirting continues momentarily...

and then...

Who needs a squirt bottle?

It figures, right? The one part of the process I think is going to be a raving success, and they toss them to the side and turn this into an adventure in finger painting. So we talk about how the paint feels, since they decided to add sensory painting to the lesson plan :)

"Feels like sand!"

"Tickles!"

"Slimy!"

The fingerpainting with puffy paint went on for awhile, and I must admit.. I thought for sure these paintings were in no way going to dry "puffy". They were bright and beautiful... puddles. I set them outside to dry though, and the Arizona sunshine worked some magic.

Definitely dried puffy, and even a bit shimmery. 

Seems puffy paint does not necessarily require squirt bottles.

I could have left it at that, but then once we came in from outside a certain someone headed back to the puffy paint, and couldn't get enough of the squirt bottle fun.

He wanted white paper so he could pretend he was decorating a cake.

Then he wanted to make "really big circles"...

...and tackle that tough to squeeze red color.

So, overall, with or without squirt bottles, puffy paint was a success!!

I think we'll keep the squirt bottles though.

Big Squeezes,

Ms. Liz