When life gives you rain… go paint with puddles! After two days of gray skies, the sun broke through in the late afternoon, and I hurried the kids into rain coats and out into the sunshine. The rain had stopped, but left behind warm puddles on the sidewalk, making it the perfect moment for puddle stomping… and puddle painting.

A note to parents on this activity: Your kids are going to get wet and you’re just going to have to be okay with that. As a result, you probably want to play during warm rain rather than cold rain, so no one starts shivering. Then just be ready with towels and dry clothes when you head inside.

With that preamble aside, the fun outside is gorgeous! I showed the kids how to draw with chalk on the sidewalk right next to puddles. Either dip the chalk in the water to wet it, or draw in a saturated spot of pavement for deep, rich colors.

Then we used a child-sized broom as our “paintbrush”. Sweep across the chalk with water from a puddle, and you’ll get a gorgeous smeary effect.

Veronika loved sweeping over my drawings, or adding her own.

Big brother Travis loved making big swirls of color in the deepest part of the puddles and then sweeping through it (he called these “ghosts”).

We left positive messages for the neighbors, too, since we’re all social distancing!

Older kids might want to get really artistic with this and younger ones will probably just make doodles.

Either way, it’s fantastic rainy day fun.