If you combine water balloons with art you’ll get this super fun summer activity! Right after my son turned 4 all of a sudden his finger took the shape of a gun, his pretend play switched from firefighters to police, bad guys and super heroes and my sanity got a little more fragile. I am a born pacifist so it’s taken me some time to acclimatize to bombs, blasters and such. One way that we have addressed it in our house is you guessed it, art and play. A project like this that channels the aggression and need for destruction was the answer for us. It was also fun!
- Gather your materials. You will need some water balloons, a container, a canvas, water color crayons ( or washable markers), and a kid ready to blast a few things.
- Start by coloring the canvas with water color crayons – washable markers will work too, just use darker more vibrant colors.
- Fill up some balloons.
- Go outside.
- Throw!
My son was adamant that he could throw it at it and had fun even though none of the first round of balloons hit it, although some were really close. - Dropping them worked way better!
- Check out how the canvas has changed!
- A few days later we tried adding washable marker.
- Blasted it with water “shooters”- liquid syringes since we were all out of water balloons, after I told him we could go blast some, luckily this was available and just as “cool”.
- Worked great.
- Let dry – pull out again and again, I think we are going to do this many more times for the rest of the summer. The layers of color will be so cool.
* As with every craft please make sure you only do crafts that you and your child can do safely. Broken balloons can be very dangerous for kids who are still putting things in their mouths. Please ensure all pieces are picked up and disposed of so we can all keep playing and creating. *
Tami says
What a great idea. This would be fun as a birthday party activity on a hot summer day.
Kim Young says
This is cool. We are going to have to do this.
Jane says
Seriously, this made me smile! Oh those funny boys!
Wendy says
We’ve had so much fun with this. We started with the balloons, did it again with straws and then again with just sprinkling water with our fingers. Love that you can do this over and over. I can’t find the water color crayons so we’ve been using washable markers. We did try washable crayons but they didn’t work :-).
Gianne says
I love this so much!! My kids had a blast doing this after nap. Thanks for making our afternoon!! cowsgomooandducksgoquack.blogspot features this project now. Gianne
Caitlin says
This is great! I am thinking of doing this with my preschool Art Explorers camp I am running this summer. Any tips on where to buy inexpensive canvases?