Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Recycling Sidewalk Chalk into Sidewalk Paint


It's hard to believe we're far enough into the summer already, to have used up sidewalk chalk, but I noticed the other day, many of our pieces of chalk were down to broken stubs.

So, I was pretty happy to find a "recipe" for sidewalk chalk paint, to make use of our nearly used up pieces.

I placed the chalk bits in Ziploc baggies, one baggie for each color, and let the girls pound them into powder with a rubber mallet - fun, fun, fun!


Once they had reduced the pieces into a fairly fine dust, I transferred it into cups...


...and added just enough water to make it paint-like when stirred with a popsicle stick.


The girls loved it. The color was slightly lumpy, but quite bright when wet, and dried to look exactly like normal sidewalk chalk. It was perfect for making large, sweeping expanses of color.


In fact, they were having so much fun out front, in the driveway, it wasn't long before we were joined by little artists from all around the neighborhood.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

7 comments:

Christy Killoran said...

We'll have to try this.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I want to try this too - how fun!

Kirsty @ Bowerbird Blue said...

brilliant use for all those stubby bits

Joyful Learner said...

You just gave me an idea on how to make more fairy dust since I have not been able to find my glitter anywhere.

Our chalk is still new but we may have to crush a few of them to make the paint. The pounding and mixing looks like a lot of fun.

How great that the neighborhood kids joined in the fun! We may have to do this in our front sidewalk to see if others will join us! Thanks for the simple clever idea!

Ticia said...

That came out quite bright.

Brimful Curiosities said...

Painting is much more fun than using the regular sidewalk chalk anyway, isn't it?

Brenna said...

Thanks for the idea. What a great thing to add to our water day activities and do something different with chalk at the same time.