Who Doesn't Love Bathtub Paint?

My boys are in love with the bathtub.  The more activities they have in the tub, the better they behave.  The thing that I like about the bathtub activities, is that they usually do not require a lot of money, the mess is contained, and it provides a sensory and learning experience, all in one.  On this day, we decided to make our own bathtub paint.

If you type in "Bathtub Paint" into a Pinterest search box, you end up with a ton of pins.  Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the pins, I created my own recipe using a combination of the most common methods out there.  The end result was:

3 pumps of bath gel
1 tbs of cornstarch
1 tbs of water
as much food coloring as you want

The original goal for this activity was to just let the boys be messy and play with colors; and to be honest, give mommy a break from being the entertainment.  This mixture of bathtub paint certainly accomplished the goal, and also added a few other accomplishments.  For starters, Pierce decided to start using this to write his letters all over the wall of the tub, using his paintbrush.  That gave him some great practice, and he was able to even attempt to show Carter how to write.  Carter enjoyed watching the colors change, as he layered them one on top of the other.  While this paint dried, it left a thin film of color, and actually worked more like a water color paint than a tempera paint (totally opposite of what I was going for).

They spent a total of 72 minutes in the tub painting, playing, and learning.  They literally stayed in there until all the paint was gone (I ended up with 6 muffin tins full of paint).  The downside was that this time, their bodies turned colors.  I am not sure if it was because I used gel food coloring (the first time I have ever used it), because they were in there so long, or if it was a combination of the two.  However, after a quick rub down with baby oil, all the dye came off and they smelled great!