Icy Water Colors

One of Baby Bear's latest fads is ice. He loves to hold it, crunch it, dig it out of cups, and play with it. One day, while Baby Bear was playing with ice, I got the idea to use it for an art project. I grabbed an ice cube tray, added one drop of food coloring to each compartment, added water, and froze overnight. The next morning, Baby Bear and I were watching Sprout, and Carly came on the TV and did the exact same thing! Well, almost. She was a little smarter about hers. After she added the food coloring and water, she covered the tray with foil and poked craft sticks into each compartment. This provided a handle to hold the ice by. Ingenious! Of course, I was quite disappointed when Baby Bear and I painted with our ice that day and ended up with colorful hands because I knew too late that this could have been avoided. Oh, well, c'est la vie. We still had fun painting with our icy water colors! I laid out some white construction paper on our patio table, and Baby Bear enjoyed alternating between painting with and eating his ice. The colors did not dry bright, but that was OK because for this activity the process was far more rewarding than the product. Next time, if we want brighter colors for a better product, I will add more food coloring... and some craft sticks! ;)