This is a neat, no-mess way for toddlers to paint a full rainbow!
To start, I needed to make a thick goopy paint. Based on a recipe I found online, I combined 1 cup flour, 2 cups water, and 1 tablespoon salt in a saucepan, then cooked over medium-low heat, stirring with a whisk. It didn’t get as thick as I hoped, but stirring in 1 tablespoon cornstarch did the trick.
Once thick, I divided the mixture among 6 paper cups and added about 20 drops of liquid watercolor to each, one for each color of the rainbow. Note: If you are worried about staining, use food coloring instead of the watercolor. However, because I knew this project would be sealed in a bag, there would be no chance for Veronika to smear it on her clothes… Or taste it!
I placed a piece of thick white paper in a gallon-sized zip-top bag, then arranged the colors in rainbow order across the paper. Because the paint was so sticky, it grew harder to work as I went, so the colors sort of ended up at a diagonal! But this still worked fine; I sealed the bag and handed to Veronika.
At first she was frustrated she couldn’t touch the paint, looking at me with disappointment. Oh that toddler glare!
But then she realized the paint blobs felt mushy and squishy beneath her hands, and she loved poking around at them.
By the end she had smeared the paints in such a way that we had a full rainbow of stripes across the bag.
It’s actually too bad that the paint was so goopy, or I would have pulled the white paper out to dry and hang on the fridge. Next time!
