Painting with ice!

There is both science and art involved here and most importantly FUN!

 

 

 

 

Today was warm and everyone was in a good mood so I thought of something fun to play - we used corn flour to make chalk for the children to make pictures with. 

 

Here's how we did it...

What you will need:

• Corn flour
• Water
• Food colouring

 

STEP ONE

Put 100g of corn flour in a bowl (you may want to add more as you go but it's a good place to start).

 

STEP TWO

Add water bit by bit until you get a texture where you can hit the corn flour and it feels solid and rest your hand on it and sink as if it's a thick liquid.

 

If you want to learn more about this you might like to read my post: Corn flour slime.

 

STEP THREE

We separated ours into different mixing bowls.  It is a fun thing to do as you pick it up and it feels solid but the longer it's in your hands the more like liquid it becomes and harder to move.  This will incite much giggling if you're anything like us!

 

 

 

 

WARNING IT DOES GET MESSY SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO USE APRONS!

 

STEP FOUR

In each of the bowls add different coloured food colourings, whatever colours you like.  You can mix colours (i.e. yellow and blue to make green or yellow and red to make orange etc.) to teach how colours mixed together make new ones.  You can talk about primary and secondary colours too.

 

STEP FIVE

When you have your different colours put into an ice-cream tray.  My girls helped me do this hence ours is slightly messy.  That is ok, it will still work.

 

 

 

When it's completely frozen take it our to some concrete and make some pretty pictures!

 

Through this mini project children can learn about mixing colours, how corn flour behaves when it's mixed in water and that reversible change when you freeze it and then, when it melts, if returns to it's original state.  They will also see that, when the water evaporates, that corn flour goes back to it's original state, although the colour change is irreversible unless of course you perhaps bleach it.

 

This is great for sensory play too!

 

Other fun experiments to try that are linked with this are:

 

Colourful ice

Painting with science - corn flour and the science behind it.

Corn Flour Slime