Aquadoodle techniques

We use our Aquadoodle art mat all the time. We lie the mat on the kitchen floor, fill the included "marker" with plain water and then let the kids go to town -- their designs show up in dark blue, and slowly fade as the water evaporates. When they're done, simply fold up the mat and stow it away.

We've been experimenting with new Aquadoodle techniques. Here are our favorites:

• Saturate a cotton ball and drop it onto the mat for a "splat" effect.
• Draw with cotton swabs, paint with paintbrushes, stamp with sponges...
• Dip a cotton ball in water, then pull some of the fibers out of the ball to create a thread. Then hold the ball over the mat and twirl it around for a cool demonstration of centrifugal force.
• Wet hand- and footprints
• Squirt water from a spray bottle -- does mist look different than stream?

Technorati Tags: Aquadoodle, Toys

Comments

[Andi]

I was at WalMart last night and saw a complete set of alphabet sponges for sponge painting in their crafts section that would be great for use with AquaDoodles. There are also water color brushes in the craft stores that hold water in the handles and "Blending Pens" of different styles which are intended to be filed with a variety of inks in the scrap book sections.

[Lewis]

My little cousins up the street have one of these. I thought it was amazing. Its like magic. Water turns into color.

These are great ideas. I'll have to share them.

[Andi]

A couple more suggestions that i neglected to post last night...

save a dropper from baby medication for use with the aquadoodle. What happens to a drop squeezed close to the mat? What about far away?

Craft foam, sold as "fun foam" or "foamees", can be purchased in all kinds of cool shaped cut outs. Some of them even have adhesive backing. It's a great way to make stamps for the aquadoodle.

Aquadoodle also has travel activity mats that can be tucked into a diaper bag and taken on the road.

There are other products with the same properties as the aquadoodle. The "Budha Board" and "Magic Paper" are both name brands of treated paper sold for practicing Sumi-e Painting and Chinese Calligraphy. They're great if you're looking for something for an older kid that will allow more detail.

[Scott]

I'm wondering if my 2 year old is the only one who has resorted to sucking on her fingers and using them when she can't find the pens...

[Linda]

great ideas! We have 2 of these mats...a regular one and the Thomas one where the train follows the track. The biggest attraction has always been to get the entire mat saturated...maybe we can try these experiments!

[Sandy]

The mini mats also work with ice cubes. We had three two-year-olds busy at the same table with that method.

[JLS]

Does anyone know how to clean an Aquadoodle mat?

[none]

Magic Eraser?

[chris]

magic eraser works but only in certain cases like magic marker and colored pencil. I've had limited success with pen but next to no results with sharpie. Your best bet is to get it as cold and wet as possible as quickly as possible and then use the magic eraser. Set in stains are nigh impossible to remove. Also have found that the travel aquadoodle is the easiest to keep clean.