Painting With Flour & Cocoa, Say What?

One thing that Usborne Books does a fantastic job of, is making its stories come to life.  These aren't just words on a page anymore, you can actually interact with these books and children LOVE it!

I'm A Dirty Dinosaur is the book that made my family fall in love with Usborne.  The quality;  this is a hard bound book with card stock pages.  It's perfect for toddlers whom we all know can be rough at times.

Kids get to stomp, splash, slide, drum, right along with the book and it's amazing to see their faces light up while they are doing it.  Illustrator Ann James uses mud in this book which I can't wait to have fun with this summer!





I'm A Hungry Dinosaur is beautifully written and illustrated and managed to steal our hearts again!  This time Ann James uses flour, cocoa, icing and sprinkles for her illustrations.  This is where my inspiration came from.  Why not let the kids do their own!?
I searched my baking cabinet for some fun stuff and decided, We were going to do this!  Please note; Do not tell toddlers that you are going to paint until you are ready.  This will result in them following you and asking every 5 seconds if you're ready yet....You would think I would know that.

To the FUN part..
You will need:

Flour
Cocoa
Water
Mixing Bowls
Whisk
Food Coloring
Paper (Card Stock, something sturdy)
Paintbrushes (we used our fingers!)
Sprinkles (optional, we were out)

I did not measure anything, I mixed some flour and water until I got a pancake batter like consistency.  I did the same thing for the cocoa.  I poured it into my separate bowls and added my food coloring.

BADABING BADABOOM!

Now the fun!  We read I'm A Hungry Dinosaur together and then they got to make their own flour and cocoa illustrations!  I traced a Dinosaur from the book but it would be just as fun to use a print of a cake!

The picture on the left was Lillian's response when I told her we were using our fingers, no paint brushes.

You can see from the photo on the right that she warmed up to the idea! <3



The kids had a lot of fun with this project but we will more than likely leave the real masterpieces to the professionals.  We are ready for summer time so we can paint with mud and become Dirty Dinosaurs! Grab both I'm A Hungry Dinosaur & I'm A Dirty Dinosaur right HERE!