Since we moved I had yet to set up a chalk drawing area outside for the girls. In our old house they spent hours with chalk and a very small blackboard (shared, grudgingly) and loved it. The easel-style blackboard didn't move with us—so there was no chalk fun. The driveway/street chalk drawing just wasn't cutting it.
I got some chalkboard paint and had plans to get wood and then about 7 months went by and the sun never came out, you know how it goes. But then, a few days ago—we got summer! A quick trip to the lumber yard provided us with these 2 big pieces of plywood. The girls painted the boards themselves with the chalkboard paint (They keep talking about how amazing it is they made their own chalk boards!) and we are good to go.
I added their favorite accessories, wet rags for enthusiastic cleaning, (I think this is what they like best) 3 spray bottles, a lot of chalk, and cups of water to make "chalk paint" which they making by dipping the chalk in the water to make it soft for maximum coverage. They crack me up.
These boards are huge, about 4' x 4'—just leaning on the side of the house in the back under the eaves, so they won't get rained on. I was thinking about how to mount them to the house but realized they are so heavy, they aren't going anywhere. If they just lean, we can easily store them in the winter and also move them to different ares of the yard if we need to. Like, if one artist needs to be alone to work uninterrupted by her sisters, who might be cramping her artistic vision, let's just say.
