Hey all! Welcome to June!
I have a fun project to share with you today. The nice weather has me wanting to try some fun projects with the boys. My boys are 4 and 2 they are so wild and full of energy. They definitely have to be kept busy. Anyone with high energy kids will know the struggle. You run out of things to do to keep them occupied. Well here’s an idea that is messy, fun and not too bad of a clean-up.
I’m so glad that the weather has been nicer. Winter is the worst. My boys do not do well being locked up indoors for months on end. We always run out of things to do when we’re stuck inside. As soon as its nice out we are out the door. We like to go to every park we can walk to when my husband has the vehicle. On weekends we drive to the big parks. One of the best things about living on a military base, right now is the fact that we can walk to a splash park. Which is truly amazing on these hot days. There isn’t a ton of stuff to do there but its enough for my little guys and that’s good enough for me.
Another thing about living on post is the fact that we have an enclosed back yard. While its not very big there’s enough room for a small swing set, a sand box and still have a little room to run. There’s also a patio, and I love to sit at the table to write, while the boys run around.
Ok well lets get to the project! Painting with squirt guns!
It was really a lot of fun. Of course they both squirted each other, they at least they worked on their paintings first. Crazy boys. This is actually a super simple project and just about self explanatory. I’m going to share what I did and what id change for next time, and of course how they cam out!
I got two big sheets of foam board, and a pack of little squirt guns. I already had paint at home. Its very important to note that it is washable paint I used. Small boys are not to be trusted with permanent paint. I used 4 colors in 4 squirt guns. Getting the paint into the squirt guns was very messy. The paint bottles I have, had a small opening so that helped, but still messy. I also added just a little water, to make sure that the paint wasn’t too thick and it would jam the guns. Not so much though that the colors wouldn’t be bright.
After that it was just a matter of setting the boards up outside and letting them do their thing. It really came out very well, and the boys had lots of fun. Although they probably had more fun squirting each other than the boards. Boys will be boys. Things that I would change: getting actual canvas instead of foam board would be the first thing I change. The foam board ended up warping a little bit. Now that they’re dried I will probably be able to flatten them back out some. With canvas there wouldn’t be any warping.
The next thing would be to use a funnel or put the paint into a squirt bottle the ketchup and mustard shaped ones. This would make it much easier to get it into the squirt guns. Also having a set of 4 for each boy would have been a lot more fun for them. Setting up two canvas for each boy would be a lot more fun as well. Having one board went by very quickly. I’ve seen people use tape to make letters or shapes before painting a canvas and trying that out next time would be really fun as well.
There it is! A fun warm weather project to do with kids! What do you guys think? Have you tried something like this before? What did you do differently? I would love to hear from you! Also please follow my blog and as always Live Crazed!
