Making "Toasterpieces" with Milk Paint

          Snacktivity: Making "Toasterpieces" with Milk Paint

My kids love to be messy... especially at meal time.  I think most kids do.  So instead of freaking out every time they put the yogurt on their hands at breakfast, I remind myself it's a sensory thing and I try to redirect them to use their spoons and instead give them the proper opportunity to be messy or even play with their food.  Today’s activity is a great example of this. It allows them to paint their bread...With milk!   The best part is they can eat it at the end.  It’s such a fun snack or breakfast activity(aka "snacktivity")!

This set up is really easy and you most likely already have everything on hand.  You will need:
- white bread (whole wheat will work too)
- milk
- food coloring
- small containers (I used empty yogurt containers)
- paint brushes (thin like for watercolors)
- plates

To begin I asked Dylan, Jake and Emma what colors they wanted to use. They picked red, yellow, blue and green.  That made my job easy!  I poured a splash of milk into empty yogurt containers (Always save these!  They are great for painting and crafts) and then added a few drops of food coloring in each container to get the right color.  Then I gave each kid a thin paintbrush. You don't want the bread to get too soggy so the smaller the paint brush and the less milk in the container the better.

Before I passed out the bread on plates I reminded them of the 2 simple rules for this activity. 

1.  They needed to only paint the bread

2.  They were not to dump out the milk paint.  

Now it was time for fun!  I handed them their bread and I gave them each one color to begin.  It was fun to hear them telling me they were making lines or circles.  They also like to tell me they are painting objects these days.  Jake, of course, is painting a monkey and Dylan was making a snowman.  After awhile I asked if they would like to trade or switch colors. Emma and Dylan wanted to use different colors, but Jake only wanted red.  He was so focused and it was great to see how nicely he was working on his masterpiece.

My favorite part of this activity was when Emma was using her yellow "paint" and realized most of her bread was covered with blue.  I asked her to see what color it would turn if she added yellow to the blue.  She quickly realized that blue and yellow make green. This was a very exciting realization for her.  It lasted too because she retold the story to her nana later that day!

Once I saw the bread was filled with color I decided it was time to take our activity one step further.  I asked everyone to hand me their plates and containers and now we were going to toast our masterpieces and turn them into “toasterpieces”. Since the bread is wet, and in Emma's case a little soggy, you can't put it in a regular toaster so I set the broiler in the oven and put the bread on a baking sheet. I put them in for about 1-2 minutes in each side.  Then I took them out and we all admired each others artwork or “toasterpieces” as we referred to them that day. Then they happily devoured their toast.  Such a fun morning activity filled with learning, art, and food.  It doesn't get much better than that!