The Art Lesson

by Tomie dePaola

In this Issue

• Painted Toast Masterpiece
• Make Your Own Sidewalk Chalk

 

Painted Toast Masterpiece

Exploring art doesn't usually involve taste buds, but here's an art activity that is good enough to eat! Kids will love creating their own snack masterpiece where a slice of bread becomes their canvas and colored milk their paint. 

Although using paintbrushes really makes this activity like painting, if you don't have any clean paintbrushes you can simply have your child spoon the milk "paint" over the bread.

Painted Toast Masterpiece

Ingredients:

• About 1 cup skim milk
• Food coloring
• Bread slices

Supplies: 

• 3 – 4 small bowls
• Clean paintbrushes

1. Put about 1/4 cup milk in each bowl.
2. Add a few drops of food coloring to each bowl, and stir.
   
3. When finished painting, toast bread slices until golden. 
   
4. Butter if desired, and enjoy as a tasty snack!
   

 

/a>Make Your Own Sidewalk Chalk

Kids will love to see how to make their own sidewalk chalk and easily mix up their favorite color. Once you've made your own chalk, get outside and make sidewalk pictures like Tommy does on the first page. 

Mixing the plaster can get messy, so you might want to make this project outside!

Make Your Own Sidewalk Chalk

Supplies

• Plaster of Paris (found at home-improvement stores)
• Liquid food coloring, gel food coloring, or tempera paint
• mixing bowls (plastic butter tubs work well)
• bathroom tissue tubes
• plastic wrap
• rubber bands
• mixing spoons
• measuring cups

  

1. Make your molds: For each stick of chalk, take 1 tissue roll and cover one end with a small piece of plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. 
2. For each color, mix 3/4 cup Plaster of Paris and 1/4 cup water in a small mixing bowl. 
   
   
   
3. Add  food coloring or paint to color the plaster. Mix well.  
   
4. Spoon the plaster into the molds until full. 
   
5. Let the plaster harden for 30 minutes until set. Remove the plastic wrap and peel the cardboard off the chalk. The chalk will not be fully dry, so leave it for a few hours to finish drying. 
6. Once dry, head outside to make your own chalk drawings!

 More From Off the Shelf

• More Tomie dePaola: The Knight and the Dragon 
• More young artists: Art by Patrick McDonnell
• More school: If You Take a Mouse to School, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten

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