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Playing outside and games involving water are summer staples. We have been going outside so much lately and both my kids love playing with water while they are outside. My husband recently bought them water guns and we have already had a water gun fight. I think my one year old was mostly confused, but my three year old loved it. She didn’t even mind getting sprayed. When I started experimenting with hydrochromic paint, making a water gun target game was one of my first ideas on what to use it for.
Hydrochromic paint is special paint that is white until it gets wet. Then it turns clear and you can see whatever is under it. This makes it a super fun way to make a target game. If you have read about how I used it to make a water reveal book, you already know that the paint is super finicky. This project was the same way. The pictures below make it look like it turned out better than it did, but in reality I made them a little too see through.
But, it still makes for a really fun game. My test painting on lamination turned out perfect, so I know you can do it better than I did it. I would have tried to redo these, but I was running low on the paint and wanted to do one other project with it instead. But, our targets still work and are lots of fun.
How to Make a Water Gun Target Game Using Hydrochromic Paint
Supplies:
- Cardstock
- Laminator (or maybe packing tape or sheet protectors)
- Hydrochromic paint
- Duck tape or packing tape
- Squirt guns
How to Make the Targets:
First, you need to print out targets on cardstock and then cut them out. I made mine using pictures of animals that my daughter chose from Clip Safari. You can download my targets here or make your own. They don’t need to be traditional targets, just whatever image you want to reveal with water.
Then, you need to laminate them. Laminating is normally optional in my crafts, but you need to do something to keep these from getting wet. I love my laminator and use it all the time. But, if you don’t want to buy one, you can try using packing tape or a sheet protector taped shut at the top. I haven’t tried these alternatives, so please if you try them, let me know in the comments how well they work.
How to Paint the Targets:
After cutting the laminated targets out, you need to paint them with hydrochromic paint. This is the trickiest part. I have more tips on using the hydrochromic ink in my book post, but here are the highlights. You need to mix a couple drops of water into the paint to help get rid of brush strokes. Then, you want to do two coats to make sure it gets to be a dark enough white. The paint goes on clear. It is ready for another coat when it is just starting to turn white around the edges like in the below picture.
Lastly, wait a couple hours for the paint to fully dry. Hopefully, your targets are fully white at this point and you can’t see the pictures underneath. If they are still a little see through like mine, don’t worry it will still be obvious where they get hit with the water. At this point you can’t do any more coats of the paint or the bottom layer won’t turn see through when wet.
How to Use the Targets:
You can use these targets in so many different ways. I just used duck tape to stick them to the fence, gave my kids squirt guns, and let them shoot them. They had a blast. It was a nice sunny day, so the first ones they shot were already turning back to white before they finished shooting the others. I think a fun game for a young kid would be to see if they could get all the animals to show up at the same time. Older kids could keep score by giving points according to the ring they shot.
Outcome of Our Water Gun Target Game
My kids had a lot of fun. I think it is hard to go wrong with being outside and shooting water guns. My three year old was able to shoot the target of the animal that we said. My one year old was happy to stand there while I helped him pull the trigger on his squirt gun. As I said above, the day we tried them out was really sunny and targets dried out quickly. This let us play for a longer time.
I’m a little disappointed at how see through the paint turned out, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. I will probably try to redo them at some point and hope that I paint them better. I would still recommend making these for your own family as they are lots of fun even when they aren’t perfect. Check out other outdoor activities we have done like this preschooler scavenger hunt. What outside summer activities are your kids’ favorites?
