We’ve been experiencing a heatwave here in recent days – stunning, hot, sunny weather, my favourite type except for snow!!!! We have been taking our activities outdoors and finding lots of fun and creative ways to play and learn in the sun! For our recent Water Themed Birthday party we bought several cheap and cheerful water pistols at a discount toy store and while I had presumed the kiddie guests would bring them home the end of the party, most didn’t (all brought their own to the party)and so now we have lots of water pistols to have fun with! Earlier in the week we put some of our leftover waterballoons to good use with paint filled waterballoon fun so I thought maybe we could do something similar with the water guns! Plus number 100 on our 100 Days of Summer Bucket List is Squirt Gun Painting!!!!
What we used:
- watered down poster paints
- water pistols
- easel
- paper
- large old bedsheet
What we did:
- I added some paint and water to each pistol and gave it a shake and tested in the sink – I didn’t want the colours to be too watery as I wanted the children to be able to see them clearly on the paper in the glaring sun!
- I set up our good old Ikea easel in the middle of the garden and placed all of the pistols in a basin.
- There was no need to explain what I wanted Doodles and Oodles to do, they dived straight in and started firing colourful spray at the easel. They thought this was amazing. I had a tough job trying to stop them from shooting each other – we came to a compromise – legs only. The paint we use typically washes out but not always.
- After awhile I brought out the big old bedsheet I had been saving for an activity just like this. They loved this, being able to stand on the sheet, shoot each others feet and create fan patterns was super fun. I loved it too!
- When we were finished, I popped the sheet into the washing machine on a hot wash so that we could reuse it again and it perfectly paint free once more.
- As all of the masterpieces were quite large from this activity, I photographed them all and we will be adding them to our digital art portfolio!
What have you been up to with water guns this morning – as always we would love to hear your fantastic ideas and try them out and we are only too happy to share your activity posts here, on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter so don’t be shy about leaving links to your post on our Facebook page or tell us about your water pistol fun in the comments!
Have fun
Ciara x
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10 responses to “Painting with Water Pistols – Outdoor Summer Fun!”
Absolutely love this! We’ve done the paint-filled water balloons before (I let the kids throw them at an old sheet on the ground from the top of a step-ladder. It was awesome) but I haven’t tried the water pistols. We’re pretty strict about no-toy-guns here, so maybe squirt bottles instead.
My kids also enjoy just “Painting” with water. I’ll give them a bucket of water and real painter brushes and rollers and they “paint” the cement foundations, our playhouse, the back steps..The surfaces look a different color when wet, but there’s no mess to clean when it’s dry!
Thanks for sharing such fun ideas!
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We have a “no gun” rule here too or had until a water gun found it’s way into our home so I decided to roll with it though no other toy weapons are allowed at all. I love your squirt bottle idea! Wish I had thought of using a step ladder with the balloons- fantastic idea- we’ll definitely try that! Painting with water is really great fun! Thanks for visiting 🙂
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Shared and shared again you little genius! Wish Buddy was old enough to enjoy this!
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Don’t worry he’ll be old enough in no time to try this out! Thanks so much for sharing and your comments always cheer me up xx
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This is awesome. I want to do this with my LO because I want to do this too!!! And that sheet is almost like a piece of art in itself!
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[…] we spent our days at home! We made fairytale castles, and miniature gardens! We painted with water pistols and waterballoons. We experimented with all sorts of playdoughs and slimes! And we explored all […]
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[…] with WATER PISTOLS! I can see this one getting way out of […]
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Do you have any suggestions as to how to make this activity last about 45 minutes
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Good question Tamzie, I wonder if you added a game element to it such as seeing how far away they can stand from the easel and still hit the paper aka target? The painting on the bed sheet with the water squirters does take a little longer by I wonder if it was hung up on the washing line be another way to approach it and maybe pick a theme instead of just random paint squirting. Also, perhaps sticking up sheets of paper at different locations around the garden , each with s different theme and at each location the child has to create something different such as a rainbow, under the sea, crazy creature, sun, etc. Hope this helps and thanks so much for visiting 🙂
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