Art Enrichment Activities
online resources
175 Online Learning Resources for Children of all Ages
Another list of Online Learning Resources
KinderArt - Amazing Art Project Ideas
McHarper Manor - An Art Studio in Ohio posting live videos weekly for art projects at home
Lunch Doodles (1pm) with Author/Illustrator Mo Willems
#DrawWithRob - drawings at 10am on Tuesday and Thursday
Art Project Ideas at home
Drawing
Find a mirror and try drawing a self portrait. What do you see? Try to keep it life size. From bottom to top....don't forget your shirt, your neck, your chin, your nose, your ears, your eyes, your eyelashes, your eyebrows, your forehead, and your hair! Draw what you see. Have any freckles or scars? What color are your eyes and hair? All done? Color it in with any color art materials you have.
Look outside and try drawing a landscape. What do you see? Trees? Bushes? A sandbox? A fence? What's closest and whats furthest away? Start with what's closest and make that the biggest on the bottom of your paper. What's in the middle? Make that a little smaller and in the middle of your paper. Whats the furthest? Make that the smallest and towards the top of your page. Don't forget a horizon line. That's where the sun comes down and meets the ground. Pick up your pencil when you hit something in your drawing, like a tree, and draw it across your paper horizontally. All done? Color it in with any color art materials you have.
Arrange objects that don't move (fruit, toys, books, candles) on a table and try drawing a still life. What do you see? What shadows were created? What is the lightest? What's closest to you? What's furthest from you and hard to see? What details do you see? Textures? All done? Color it in with any color art materials you have.
Painting
Tempera paint and texture - try adding texture to your wet tempera painting with objects around the house like marker caps, cardboard, legos, sponges, (anything you can easily wipe off).
String painting (tempera) - dip one end of string in different tempera paint colors and see what marks the string makes on your paper when you drop it down. Try folding the paper over the string and pulling it out too!
Marble painting (tempera) - dip a few marbles into different tempera paint colors and roll them around on your paper to create a cool painting!
Primary colors (tempera) - squeeze some red, some yellow, and some blue paint onto a paper plate and leave room for mixing. What 2 colors will make green? Orange? Purple? After you've mixed the secondary colors create a painting of whatever you'd like.
Watercolor Techniques - wax resist (draw with crayons and paint over the crayon. Try white... it looks like magic!), wet on wet (wet your paper and drop paint into the water and watch it spread like tie dye.) While its wet you can also sprinkle in salt, drop in shaving cream, or blow on it with a straw. Try them all and compare the differences!
Building/Sculpture
Have any play doh? Model magic? Air dry clay? Build for 20-30 minutes. Your favorite animal, your house, your head, your favorite food, etc. How tall can you build a tower without it falling?
What else do you have...blocks? Legos? Brain flakes? Picasso tiles? Build for 20-30 minutes. Be creative!
Mixed Media/Collage
Have any kid friendly magazines or sections of a newspaper? Try cutting out pictures and words that you like and make a collage! If you can't find complete words, cut out letters and make your own. All done? Try drawing or painting on top.
Cut up different colors of construction paper into little squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles. After you have a pile of each color create a mosaic picture by fitting the pieces together like a puzzle. What did you come up with? A castle? An animal? A scene? See if someone in your family can guess what you made!
Coloring Pages
Babble Dabble Do - Connecting Through Creativity
This site has great ideas for art activities you can make at home with whatever materials you have!
aRt videos
Pinterest - Art Videos - Teaching Art to Kids
There are amazing step by step videos and pictures for various art movements, materials, famous artists, experiments, times of year, etc. Clicking on an image will take you to the link to watch the video to create the activity. (I didn't create a link because you need an account to view the images.)
This link will take you to FANTASTIC art lesson plans for all grades and you can search for ideas by age, method, material, theme, and more.
Rob and his family create videos of step by step drawings of EVERYTHING! They are very easy to follow, interactive and fun, and very relevant to things kids like today. Try watching a few and following along to create your own drawings!
Cassie Stevens is an art teacher in Tennessee that runs a blog and a youtube channel with awesome tutorials! She inspires some of my projects and is very dynamic, interactive and engaging!
Free School: Famous Artists for Kids
These are short kid friendly videos of different famous artists: their lives, their work, and the mark they made on history.
art log
Have your child log 20-30 minutes a day of free drawing/painting/building and have them share what they created with you. Try putting on calming music during this time and encourage them to go slow, learn from their mistakes, and be creative! This link will take you to my go to music for in the classroom and at home when making art. Enjoy!
Want to take it a step further? Try incorporating some child yoga into your creativity time. This link will take you to the cards that we use at school to encourage mindfulness, self-regulation, being calm, and relaxation.
This link will take you to a free download for Kira Willey's Mindful Moments for Kids CD that pairs music with instruction through common child yoga moves.