Charny Carnival

Finger Painting

Make your own finger paint!  Finger painting is lots of fun for kids.  They love the ooey-gooey feels as the paint oozes through their fingers.

Here's a simple recipe for finger paint. If they're old enough, your children may even be able to help make it and have even more fun!

Top Ten Tips and Tricks with Watercolor Paints

Watercolors are kids' favorite paints! It is so easy to pull out that long box of paints, grab a paintbrush and pour a jar of water...then let the fun begin. Here are some tips and tricks to make those watercolor sessions even more exciting.

  1. Just add salt! It creates a speckly, star-burst pattern when it dries, like the pattern on our Green Salt Dragon. Sketch a picture with a light pencil line. Paint only the areas you want to salt. Use lots of wet, bright paint. While the paint is still wet and puddly, sprinkle salt on top...regular salt from the kitchen. Then set the paper aside to dry. When you come back, brush the dried salt away and see the beautiful pattern it left in the paint underneath. Carefully paint the rest of the picture if you want.

Wiggly Art

Turn Jello into a work of art! Cooking has never been so fun. And eating your artwork makes it even better!

Begin by mixing up half a package of Jello, any flavor and color you want. Ask your adult helper to do the first step, which is stirring boiling water into the powdered mix. The hot water could hurt kids, so don't do this part alone. Once the Jello is mixed, kids can do all the rest of the work by themselves.

Pour this first Jello into the bottom of yur dish and set it in the refrigerator until this layer is firm...about 30 minutes.

Not the design fun! Cut vegetables and fruit into shapes to create a design. Rub the fruit with lemon juice so it won't turn brown. Lay the pieces right on the firm layer of Jello in the dish. Then have your adult helper mix up the other half of the Jello and spoon this gently over your design pieces. Use just enough Jello liquid to cover your design pieces, but don't use too much Jello, or the fruit and vegetables will float and your design will change (or maybe this is what you want.....a random design!).

  Put your dish into the refrigerator and let this layer get firm. You can keep adding design pieces and layers as long as you want, or you can stop here. The Flower Salad on this page was made with cooked and chilled asparagus stems, cantalope wedge flower petals with banana slice and cherry centers. he Lion Dessert was created with pear slices and mandarin orange segments, a grape nose, and coconut colored with green food coloring for the grass.

Decorate the top of your Jello art with nuts and marshamllow pieces, whipped cream, coconut...anything you wish. Then serve it for a very special dessert or salad at dinner. Your family wlll be amazed!

The Great Broccoli Forest

Draw a couple curved lines on a big sheet of white paper to make hills. Slice a small piece of broccoli in half, right down the middle (ask an adult to do this, beacuse it takes a sharp knife to make a really smooth cut). Pat the flat side of one of the broccoli slices into a thin layer of paint that you have sperad on a plate. Pat it a few times so the paint gets all over the flat broccoli. Then carefully stamp the broccoli on the paper, making a tree shape on one of your curvey hills. Make more trees...and more trees. Make a whole forest. Stamp with both slices of the broccoli. Add little drops of other colors to your plate of paint. Orange and gold colors will make your forest look like autumn.

After your forest is finished and the paint has dried, you can draw little animals or people around the trees. In our example, a little slice of a green bean was stamped to look like mushrooms or rocks on the ground. Experiment...have fun...what other vegetable stamps can you invent?

Materials: Paper, crayons, green tempera paint (and other colors if you want), a piece of broccoli top, paintbrush, knife, plate.

Time: 10-15 minutes