Inside: Art activities for kids are important for their intellectual growth and development. Art develops creativity and a sense of exploration with kids. Here are two tried-and-true art methods for kids and 20 different art projects to stimulate your child’s sense of wonder.
Art Activities for Kids
Why Art?
Do your children love to draw, paint, color, or doodle? Do they love craft projects? If so, they are Spatial/Visual Smart! In a previous blog, I talked about the 9 kinds of smart and children who love the arts fall into the category of Visual/Spatial.
Some of the most brilliant minds are Visual/ Spatial—Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Amelia Earhart, Ben Carson, and others. They saw three-dimensional pictures in their minds-eye and were amazing problem-solvers.
Art Activities for Kids: Butcher Paper Creations
One way to nurture this “smart” is to provide art lessons. Look in your community and see what is available and enroll your child.
At home, have plenty of art supplies on hand for your child—markers, crayons, paint, and paper, etc.
Here’s a fun idea that our kids loved: put butcher paper on the walls and let your children draw in a standing position. As mentioned on a previous blog, drawing in a vertical position helps a child with:
- Midline crossing (helps to determine right or left dominance)
- Hand-eye coordination
- Spatial awareness
- Posture
- Movement
Drawing or painting standing up is important to help a child develop midline crossing. Put butcher paper on your walls and let your kids draw and paint to their hearts’ content!
20+ Art Activities for Kids: Cardboard Creations
Another idea art activity has to do with cardboard (you know—the stuff boxes are made from that we’re always throwing away!).
Meet Barbara Rucci, author of Cardboard Creations. Her book is loaded with amazing ideas of fun and exciting art projects you can do at home with your children. Materials needed are simple:
- cardboard boxes
- paint & brushes
- recycled materials such as paper grocery bags, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, egg cartons, popsicle sticks, straws, etc.
Stop throwing away those cardboard boxes from Amazon AND—ask your neighbors to save their boxes for you, too. They are perfect for creating amazing artwork.
Barbara’s ideas in her book are endless—and will provide hours of creativity, exploration and problem-solving for your kids.
Here are just 5 simple, yet powerful things your kids will learn when making these cardboard creations:
- How combining certain colors creates a new color
- Following simple directions
- Problem-solving skills
- Spatial awareness
- Building sensory integration skills
Children love making paper “fortune tellers” or chatterbox paper. Have your child paint pieces of square paper (or use colorful paper) and make these fun games
Remember: as your child becomes immersed in making an artistic creation from cardboard, it’s about the PROCESS, not the OUTCOME! It’s the process that builds brain cells and sparks lasting creativity!
Barbara gives extensions and variations of how the child can use the materials to enlarge the creative experience. There is also a section in her book called “Inquire and Engage”—where you ask your kids questions about what they are making to get them to think.
Here are just a few art project ideas from her book:
Idea #1 Art Activities for Kids: Paper Bag Masks
Make masks made from paper bags decorated with glitter, pom-poms, straws, washi tape and paint. A great after-school activity to do with your kids before settling down to do homework. It will get their brains primed, exercised, and working on all 4-cylinders to tackle those difficult math problems.
This art activity uses paper bags from the grocery store, paint, pom-poms, straws, balloons, glitter and other recyclable materials.
Idea #2 Art Activities for Kids: Cardboard Houses and Cities
Using all different sizes of boxes, have your children make cardboard houses. Paint windows and doors and stack them on top of each other to create neighborhoods and cities. Can you imagine the hours of fun your kids will have as they play with their own neighborhood and cities made from boxes? Plus as they work with their friends creating these art projects, they will learn important teamwork skills.
Our kids’ favorite toys growing up were the boxes their toys came in—and a simple appliance box provided hours of fun and exploration.
Don’t throw away appliance boxes–they can be used to create fun and interesting cities, neighborhoods and houses.
Idea #3 Art Activities for Kids: Painted Paper Collage
Take individual pieces of paper and paint or watercolor designs on them. Attach to a large piece of cardboard using washi tape or other colored tapes. As shown in the picture, put the tape directly across the painting. What do they remind you of? To me, these unique designs resemble quilts (just made from paper, not fabric). Look at the quilts made by the Quilters of Gees Bend, Alabama—they have created amazing quilts from simple fabrics found around their homes. Many look geometric–much like these paintings.
Let your child paint watercolor designs on pieces of paper. Attach the paper to a piece of cardboard using washi tape. What does this picture remind you of?
Idea #4 Art Activities for Kids: Collage from Recycled Materials
Here is a fun and simple Egg Carton & Toilet-Paper-Roll Collage. Suggestion: DON’T THROW AWAY ANOTHER EGG CARTON! They are fabulous to paint and arrange in an interesting cardboard collage along with painted toilet paper rolls, popsicle sticks, straws, buttons and more. The possibilities are endless! Move over Picasso, here are some art creations that will rival the Modern Artists of yesteryears!
Using fun recycled materials such as egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and paper towel rolls–your child can create a masterpiece!
Art Activities for Kids: Monart Method
Have you ever heard of Monart? It’s an art program developed by Mona Brookes. Her approach is based on the idea that anyone can learn to draw if they understand that art is comprised of shapes, lines, colors that can be broken down into simple shapes and then reconstructed.
Even very young children love expressing themselves with simple crayons and paper.
Monart requires the child/adult to copy a series of shapes onto their paper. Then the teacher takes the child through a “guided” drawing exercise that puts all the shapes together into a drawing of—an animal, nature scenes, flowers, plants, vases, etc.
It’s like the saying, “how do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “one bite at a time.” You are creating a drawing of something by first breaking into pieces and then putting the pieces back together.
Some critics of this program say that all the artwork looks the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. Two of my sons took the class together; drew the same drawing and they looked totally different. The class allows for creativity, individual interpretation, and coloring.
The Monart school teaches kids to take different shapes and create them into a picture. You can see all the different shapes that went into creating this picture of a kangaroo. Each child’s picture is different–with different colors and interpretations that make it uniquely theirs.
Her book, Drawing with Children includes information on how to approach art if your child has learning disabilities; how it dovetails with the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and how the Monart method compliments learning in reading, math, science, ESL, multicultural studies, and environmental awareness.
Art = Smart Kids!
Kids love to create! They love to drip paint on paper and canvases, they love to draw nonsensical shapes and find meaning and discovery in the process.
Want to raise smart kids? Kids, that are more visually and spatially aware? (Which means they will be better at math, reading, and science). Kids, who appreciate the beauty found on this earth and in the simplest of things? (Which means they will pay attention to details!)
If you answered “yes,” –then get your child involved with art! My kids loved their art lessons which, by the way, complemented their music lessons. Simply put—there is nothing like the arts for building the brain and helping kids find success in school and beyond!
Check out these books for art inspiration for kids on Amazon and grab your kids and create away!
Note: The information on this blog is taken from my “Tidbits of Wisdom for Parents” YouTube video series. You can access the 7-minute video here: Here are the Most Amazing Fun Art Projects for Kids!
Want to remember this post? Post, “Here are the Most Amazing Fun Art Projects for Kids!” to your favorite Pinterest board!
Thank you SO much, Sharlene, for sharing my book!! I’m so grateful to have caring and thoughtful arts educators around me to spread the word about process art and using recycled materials. My goal is to consume less and take care of our planet, but the things I do consume, it makes me feel so much better knowing that my students can use the recycled materials in their creative explorations. Love this post and your blog!! xo Bar
Barbara–your cardboard art is an inspiration to all of us! Like so many others, we are in love with the creative results your kids and students get from using simple recycled materials and cardboard. The next step: create a place in our homes for our kids and grandkids to come and create and explore the world of art while building stronger more creative brains. Thank YOU for letting me share your amazing books!
I am absolutely obsessed with those adorable paper bag masks! I can easily see this as a fun craft to do with your own children at home but also as a great culminating activity in the classroom. Students in the classroom can create their masks for their favorite book characters or even a character they have created in their own writing. Such amazing ideas from an extremely talented blogger!
Love this idea, Tiffany! Love that you are combining art, writing & books–a great interdisciplinary idea for learning! You can tell you are a teacher… These paper bag masks have been around for a long time–I made them as a child–so glad they are still a fun way for kids to create! Thank you for sharing!