When I was a kid, which was a million years ago if you ask my kids, I had this set of scratch-n-sniff Little Golden Books that I absolutely adored. I was a bit obsessed with them. The scented photos were one more little detail that magically brought the pages to life.

Recently while we were shopping at a second-hand store my son found a version of a Little Bunny Follows His Nose. He was almost as excited as I was. As we explored the pages of this book, I watched his excitement burst from his seams every time we discovered a new image to scratch. I just knew I had to explore scratch-n-sniff activities more often with him. This Skittles Candy Paint was a super easy way to make watercolors at home.

Make scented watercolors at home with these simple DIY Skittles Candy Paint! My kids loved playing with this scratch-n-sniff-paint!

My son had so much fun with this scratch-n-sniff watercolor paint! We have visited this activity multiple times since we originally made it. It has been a beautiful tool for engaging my son in exploration.

Concepts Explored:

Heavy/Light
Big/Small
Color Mixing
Taste (YES! These watercolor paints are perfectly safe to taste!)
Smell
Color Sorting
Pre-Writing Skills
Pincer Grip
Pencil Grasp (Digital Pronate -using pointer finger to hold brush)

Items Needed to Make Skittles Candy Paint

Water
Skittles (buy here)
Jars
Craft Tray (buy here)
Paint Brushes for Kids (buy here)

How to Make Skittles Candy Paint

When we created this paint, I made enough of it so that we could use whatever was leftover to make skittles playdough. This watercolor follows the exact same concept as our Conversation Hearts Watercolors, but it showed up a hundred times more vibrant. To start I let my son sort out his colors (this free printable skittles game for kids is great to play while sorting your skittles) . This did take a bit and we ended up with a lot of mixed reds and oranges. Letting kids help in this step is not only an awesome way to explore sorting and colors, but it also works on their pincer grip.

Once my son lost interest in sorting the colors I checked to make sure that each color contained about 1/4 cup of skittles and then topped it off with a cup of water. Then let it sit for about half an hour!

It is actually really fascinating to watch the colors dissolve off of the skittles. If you are making these watercolors I would highly recommend setting a 1-4 Skittles of each color off to the side to explore the science behind dissolving Skittles. It really is magical!

Once the scratch-n-sniff paints are ready you will notice a waxy film across the top of the watercolors. I simply used a kid spoon to remove what was sitting on top.