I saw a cool idea for kids' watercolor painting but we didn't actually have watercolors. However, when I took time to read through the directions, the author said she used water with a few drops of food coloring mixed in. Food coloring is something I had plenty of! 
All we needed was watercolor paper, a white crayon, an ice cube tray filled with water (and a few drops of coloring in each hole) and paint brushes.I sat the kids down and put a towel in front of each of them to catch the drips from the papers. I have no idea how one little person can spill so much water from a single ice cube tray, but Elise's towel was soaked right through when she was done.
Anyway, I cut the paper into small pieces and used the white crayon to draw hearts on some, the kids' names on a couple, and then I tried to write out a couple Bible verses they've been learning on the last two. They couldn't see the crayon shapes, but when they dipped their brushes into the 'paint' and started coloring the paper the hearts and letters magically appeared--so fun! Parker was excited to see what was on his papers. Elise went through her papers quickly and then was happy to just keep dipping her brush into the water until every hole on her side had turned a nice, murky brown. :)
Afterwards we left them on the towels to dry for a while. The yellow paint dried really light and made it hard to read all the words, but the other colors turned out pretty well!The kids were excited about their paintings and Parker started pulling out a few to send to Grandpa and Grandma. Such an easy way for them to make art! Not much to prep or clean up, either... we'll definitely be trying this again!
