Edible finger painting

Anyone who has ever stayed at home with young children can tell you it’s not always easy to find activities for all ages that all of the kids can do AT THE SAME TIME. When I made the transition from working full time to staying at home with 3 children under 5 one of my main issues is that I struggled to find activities to keep the kids busy. Eventually you start to get really creative! One activity my 4 year old absolutely LOVES is painting- seriously the kid could sit there for hours and paint all day. The only issue is that whatever my 4 year old does - my 1 year old is sure to follow. The first time I ever tried letting the 1 year old join in it was an absolute disaster - sure the paint was watercolor and non toxic but she managed to eat way more than she should have ( please don’t judge me - it was chaotic that day) and so after that experience any time my 4 year old wanted to paint I had to set up a baby gate AND another activity so that the 1 year old wasn’t screaming bloody murder trying to get into the kitchen where her sister was painting. Having to seperate both children was mentally draining because my 1 year old sticks to her older sister pretty closely and so I had started to hate pulling out the paint for my older daughter which wasn’t fair to her at all- why should she have to give up an activity she enjoyed simply because the younger one couldn’t join in? And so I started looking for paints that were edible and I realized I had everything I needed in my kitchen to solve this dilemma! I made edible paints from just two simple ingredients- that’s it. No catch. Just two ingredients - yogurt and food coloring.

Specifically I used these two items

I grabbed four different glasses ( that’s all the food coloring packet had in it) and I simply dropped a few tablespoons of yogurt in each cup and added the food coloring. I didn’t really measure the food coloring I just kept squirting until I got the color I was going for and the result is pictured below.

After that I simply put my 1 year old in her high chair and sat my 4 year old down like I normally do. They both LOVED it! And the great thing is it was totally safe for the 1 year old to eat so she painted and snacked 😊 while I sat by thrilled with this simple solution. I will definitely be doing this activity again in the near future!

Sincerely,

The “F” Bomb Mom