I made these vibrant bath paints for my elder son about a month ago. I was so excited to mix it all up (it was midnight!); I had no idea you could make such fun things from just three simple ingredients: cornflour, baby bath liquid and food colouring. I got the bath paint idea and recipe after doing a google search for toddler activities. I used the recipe here (but changed one ingredient): http://diypreschool.blogspot.co.nz/2007/04/bathtub-paints.html?m=1 I made one substitution: I used Simple Baby Shampoo instead of the bath liquid as we were almost out of our Simple Baby Bath liquid. I first checked the ingredients, and the shampoo and baby bath had almost all of the same ingredients. So I got mixing and was excited at the prospect of seeing my son playing with them (though, it’s important to not have any expectations with toddlers when you do activities with them…they may not like it at all at first, and then get into it later. Or they may play with it for a bit, want you to *not* put it away – although they are not playing with it! – and then come back to it later). So, the next day (it wasn’t bath time), I let my son put on his swimming trunks and excitedly presented the paints. He seemed keen, too. So he got into the bath tub, and slowly began to fiddle with the paint. First, he rearranged the containers of paint into a straight line. Once the important business of straight lining was done, I got him started and put some paint on my hands and put it on the tiled wall. I then went and attended to my baby son; my toddler played with the paints, very quietly, for about half an hour. He agreed indifferently when I asked him if he wanted to be taken out of the bath. The second time with the bath paints, he got a bit more experimental. It was actually bath time, so he stood up in the water, put a bit of yellow bath paint in his hair, and then put some blue on his tummy and leg. He asked me to put some on, too. So I put yellow on a strand of my hair, and put a blue dot at the end of my nose. He seemed to get into it more this time. The third time, he really enjoyed it, and I joined in, too. He painted the tiles on the wall of the bath, then we put paint all over our hands and did hand prints on the tiled wall. Such fun. He asked me to put some paint on my face, so I wrote number 1 on my forehead. Then I was asked to write number 2; I obliged. Such fun. My husband joined in too, and wrote ‘A’ and ‘B’ in red on the bath tiled wall…
My son was in there for ages – he loved it, alhamdulillah. I also kept my number 2 and dots on my forehead for a while, and only took them off when I needed to do wudu for maghrib. Fun times, indeed. We ordered takeaway that evening and my husband happened to pop out to the supermarket momentarily; I still had a number 2 and dots on my forehead when the takeaway man rang the doorbell…so I pulled my headscarf all the way down my forehead to cover the paint before getting the door! The great thing about the bath paints is that they are very easy to clean up (they lather up when you take to the painting with a bit of water and a sponge), and you can easily extend them into another activity: finger painting (my son wasn’t into finger painting, when we tried). The bath paints kind of dried up and hardened after two/three weeks. So I actually need to mix up a new batch, as my son kept asking for more. Here is the link for the the recipe again, where you can get quantities: http://diypreschool.blogspot.co.nz/2007/04/bathtub-paints.html?m=1 It’s really easy to mix up! Hope you have fun with it. And please do let me know if you try it.
AtHomeWithThePrinces 