Sensory Pudding Paint for Babies and Toddlers

Recipe for Play - Frozen Pudding Paint

All four of my boys are paint enthusiasts.  They love sensory activities, so I enjoy combining the two.  A cherished and baby safe intro to painting is pudding paint!  When my babies were little they enjoyed when I put a few spoonfuls of pudding or yogurt on their high chair tray, so they could smear it around.  Yogurt is my baby safe sensory paint of choice since it doesn't have sugar.  Now that my little guys are a bit bigger (15 months), I'm a little more comfortable with them having small amounts of sweets.  For the purpose of sensory play I made a batch of tapioca pudding.  Once the pudding had cooled I added a few colored ice cubes to it to set up an invitation to paint.  The colored cubes were made by adding a few drops of food coloring to water before freezing.

Tank was the first to dive into the sensory paint.  You can tell by his face the cold ice surprised him.  It didn't slow him down, though.

Tank was delighted to smear the colored cubes in the paint and watch as the colored blended.

I used a simple set up.  The sensory paint and ice cubes were on a cookie sheet from Dollar Tree.  Until a few days ago it has been in the eighties here, so we played outside.  When we do messy play outside I put it out right on the concrete since I can hose it down when we finish.  Now that we have officially hit cooler weather there will be days when I set these invitations up inside.  I recommend doing indoor messy play on a shower curtain or tarp of some sort.  We use a shower curtain from Dollar Tree and throw it in the laundry after playing.  If the temperature of the ice concerns you in cooler months you could easily skip the ice and simply squirt a few drops of coloring directly into the pudding.

After playing and smearing the paint for quite some time, Tank finally tasted it and realized what a sweet treat he was holding.

Peanut didn't play in to the paint too much, but when he saw his brother taste testing it, he decided he needed a spoon.  It really cracked me up when he grabbed a spoon and joined us.

JZ (5) also joined us after awhile.  He really lost himself in the mixture.  He loved seeing the colors blend and feeling the textures and varying temperatures in his hands.  Even as his brothers devoured the pudding he continued to explore.

I love these moments, watching my boys play, explore, get messy, learn and grow.   Here are tips and tricks for messy play as well as laundry tips for avoiding stains.

For more ideas follow my Recipes for Family board on Pinterest.

Click on the images below for more baby and toddler safe recipes for play: