Sunday, July 17, 2011

Day 5 of Fizzy Fun - Fizzing Sidewalk Paint


We went out early this morning to paint the driveway before the sun could get too hot.  Fizzing Sidewalk Paint is one of the activities from our Summer Bucket List, and it was the inspiration behind our week of fizzy fun.  The idea came from Quirky Momma.

This is how you make it:

Ingredients:
1 entire 1 lb. box of baking soda
1/2 cup corn starch
approximately 1 cup hot water (maybe more, maybe a little less)
food coloring
vinegar in a spray bottle

Directions:
1.  First, I mixed the baking soda and corn starch together in a bowl.
2.  Next, I added the hot water a little at a time until I got a paint like consistency.  Mix really well so that you don't get clumps, but if you do get clumpy paint at any time, just add a little more water and mix.  Even after we started painting with it, if the paint clumped up, I just added a few drops of hot water and mixed it.  This worked very well.
3.  I spooned the mixture into a silicone muffin pan and added food coloring to each cup so that we could have six different colors of sidewalk paint.


Then, we all went outside (in our pajamas - my neighbors must think we are crazy!) and got to work painting the driveway. 


We were very happy with the paint as just paint, but when we started to spray it with vinegar and the fizzing began, it was VERY COOL!!!!!!
 
I almost cut the recipe in half because it seemed like a lot, but we used almost every drop of paint this morning, so I recommend making the whole amount.  The ingredients are all very inexpensive (certainly cheaper than buying sidewalk paint that doesn't even fizz), so go for it and have fun!


To read about all of our fizzy fun science experiments (so far), click here.  Stay tuned for our fizzy fun grand finale coming soon!

Check out Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom; you can find me (and a lot of other bloggers with science posts) there!

13 comments:

momandkiddo said...

That looks really fun!

Anonymous said...

What fun! We love sidewalk paint.. I will have to add the fizz aspect to it next time!

Ticia said...

I need to go back and look at my summer bucket list again, I've totally forgotten most of the things on it.......

I really need to break down and do this at some point, but I think I'll wait until September, you know when it's not 100 degrees at 9:00.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

I've seen this mentioned on a few blogs, but haven't paid too much attention - I should have, because it really sounds like fun! Like the pajamas too - that has to make it even better :)

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

This is an interesting idea! Somehow all the projects that involve cornstarch didn't work out for us so far, but this one sounds like fun. I think I will bookmark it for my future lists.

Susan said...

Who cares if the neighbors think you're crazy! ;) The important thing is the fun! The science connection is bonus :) Fizzy science is the best kind, according to my youngest daughter.

Valerie @ Inner Child Fun said...

I NEED to try this!!!! Looks like so much FUN! :-D

Jenny said...

That is a neat idea! Plus, if you spray the vinegar on the weeds that grow in the cracks of the driveway, it will kill them! Bonus fun!

Kelly said...

This looks like so much fun. We have it in our summer bucket list too.
Litte Wonders' Days

Anonymous said...

I'd love to try this! Did it wash off completely when you were done? I'd like to do this at school, but don't want to get in trouble if I leave a mess--worse, a permant mess!

Christy Killoran said...

@Kymberli - We tend to leave our driveway beautified until the rain washes all of the decorations away. My experience with corn starch on the driveway though is that it lasts for quite a while.

Sherri said...

That would be fun!

Michelle said...

This looks like so much fun, I need to catch up on all the amazing things you have been doing. Thank goodness there is still time left in the summer to try them all out! Hope you are staying cool thanks for all the great ideas.

~Michelle