Writing Playground: Chalk Paper

Do you have any old sidewalk chalk laying around your house? Do you want to excite your students with a fun writing project? Try Chalk Paper!

Materials:

• White paper
• Tub of water larger than your paper
• Chalk
• Plastic knives

Instruct your kiddos how to handle the plastic knife in a safe way. I use to have my fifth grade students do this and at home my 4 year old, 6 year old, and 8 year old could all do this properly.

Have students take turns scraping chalk dust off of the chalk pieces onto the surface of the tub of water. Add different colors and create a film of colored chalk on the water surface.

 

Drop your paper onto the chalk dust and then quickly pick it up. Lay this paper out, chalk side up, to dry.

Older kids can help your younger ones with this step if needed. My daughters loved helping their little brother.

It was a beautiful day, so we laid ours out to dry on our picnic table. In the classroom, I laid them out on paper towels labeled with each kid’s name on a flat surface. They dry and look a little different, so labeling the paper towels helped identify which chalk paper belonged to which kid. You could even do this at home with multiple children.

Here’s what some of our dried papers looked like:

Then comes the fun part! In the elementary classroom, we used these to write poems on specifically. At home, my older children used them to write letters to friends and my four year old chose to stamp his name on the paper:

My kids ask to do this activity all the time. It doesn’t require a lot of supplies or time. Waiting for the papers to dry can be the most impatient part of the process.

Share your ideas in the comments on how you could use these marbleized papers in your classroom or at home with your own kids.

Happy Writing!

-Dr. Precise