I love art activities that are easy to set up and require no help from me. Here is a super simple process art activity for kids of all ages. All you need are rocks, a bowl of water and some old sidewalk chalk. I've written another blog post about wet sidewalk chalk on paper. Here is a new activity, wet chalk on rocks. It is as simple as it sounds.
Start with one bowl of fresh water for each kid. For some reason kids love putting chalk in water. Let them pick a handful of sidewalk chalk colors to place into their bowl of water. The older and dirtier the sidewalk chalk the better.
Placing the sidewalk chalk into water brings it back to life. You will start to see vibrant, rich colors again. Crayola sidewalk chalk works great. Wet chalk acts almost like paint on the rocks, leaving thick layers of color, yet the advantage of chalk is that it will come off with some simple washing. Show your kids how they can use the wet sidewalk chalk to paint on the rocks.
After they finish the rocks, move their supplies to the sidewalk or back porch and tell them to draw something fun, this will extend the activity!
The great part about this is it's all washable, so you don't need to hover over them. Yes they may draw on the house, and they may even end up with yellow eyebrows, but they are having fun and they are out of the house. So go ahead and pour yourself another cup of coffee or a glass of wine while your kids spend the next 20-30 minutes creating.