Painting with Pudding

by Taressa Ishimi, Staff Writer


Childcare is no easy task by any stretch of the imagination, it is a constant stress test... not to mention a persistent tug on your sense of sanity. Which is why I have decided to write this hopeful series of pieces.

Always on the look out for activities enjoyable for kids and adults alike I want to help you to deal with any and all parenting issues and to help you find activities that don't require you to have yet another nursery rhyme trapped in your head on infinite loop.

I will share activities I find, address questions you may have and share what I find and ideally tips I may acquire whether through experience, opinion, or ideas provided by others to help make your kid time easier and more enjoyable. After all many college students and staff members are parents or are in the childcare industry too. And if anyone has ideas or activities or questions they want to share all ears are open.

With my primary requirement being that my paint source be something that not result in a trip to the ER if ingested I opted for vanilla pudding. Once the pudding was made, with the aid of my friend's two year old daughter, we seperated the pudding into several bowls and added food coloring to each bowl to provide our red, white, and blue paints. But if you are interested in other colors the food coloring box often provides some interesting color combination tips.

I opted to use the pudding for face painting, however some of you may remember an episode of "Jon and Kate Plus 8" in which the kids used pudding paint on sheets of paper.

And for those of you thinking that you'll set the kids up and stay out of the way of any and all projectile pudding I highly recommend getting involved. The pudding feels great on your skin and cool in the hot summer weather.

Warnings:

-This is sweet and sticky so depending on the number of kids you have you may want to do this either outside or maybe even in the tub for easier clean up.
-If you opt for face painting having a mirror around so they can see what they are doing will help them to enjoy it all the more.
-This is a fun opportunity to show them how to mix colors.
-Remember food coloring may not always be clothings best friend so you may want to dress them for mess or toss their clothes into the sink for a soak.
-Most importantly for collegiate parents this a fairly cheap and easy activity which may require repeating.