Traveling Chair Art Activity

A couple week ago, the kids and I tried out an art lesson from the Getti Museum called "Chairs, Rooms, and Time Travel".  It turned out to be much more than an art lesson as the kids discussed history and geography, used descriptive words, and employed creativity.  Here's what we did...

Duct Tape Fashion Top

This isn't a new project, but I really wanted to share it.  A couple months ago, L (age 6.5), who is a little fashionista, asked me if she could sew herself a dress.  I wasn't quite ready to get all my sewing things out, so we decided to make it out of colorful duct tape.  L has watched Project Runway with me on occasion and was very excited for her own "unconventional materials challenge".  We winged it rather than following instructions, and it was actually quite easy.  Here are the steps we took...

Dancing with Degas: Artist Study

The kids and I have been so engrossed with science lessons over the past couple weeks, that we've been neglecting our Art and Music studies.  I found some fun (and free) art lesson plans from the Getty Museum.  We had a fabulous time with the one titled The Art and Depiction of Dance, about Edgar Degas.

Artwork by a Five Year Old

E (just turned 5) is our resident artist.  I wanted to share some of her masterpieces.  E prides herself on the realism of her art.  Sometimes when I'm reading books about nature and animals aloud to the kids, I'm not sure if E is listening, but then she makes detailed drawings and starts telling me stories about the behaviors of the different animals.  Here's another nature drawing..

Miss Rumphius - Painting Lupine Flowers

Nothing makes a picture book more fun than letting the kids do a special activity related to the story.  After reading Miss Rumphius a book by Barbara Cooney about a woman who plants Lupines to make the world more beautiful, the girls painted their own Lupine flowers.  Here's what we did...

Foil Sculptures

The girls really enjoyed making foil sculptures last week (using aluminum foil over pipe cleaners).  This project came from the Usborne Art Treasury book in the study of a sculptor named Alberto Giacometti.  It was a nice change to incorporate some three dimensional art in our artist studies...

Kandinsky Circles Art Project

I'm starting to introduce my kids to famous artists and their works.  Last week's artist was Kandinsky and E created an oil pastel / watercolor relief inspired by his famous painting of circles..

Rainbow Toast {Painting Bread}

When the girls saw Rainbow Toast in their Highlights High Five Magazine (back-issue from 2007 from Ebay), they begged me to let them try it out... so we did!  This activity was a great way to make a snack using all sorts of Montessori practical life skills and creativity.  Here's how to do it..

Dog Stencils {Hairy Maclary Activity}

I like to take a break from blogging on the weekends so I can spend time with my kids.  We haven't been slacking on our book-a-day challenge for March, though.  Yesterday I read the girls a couple books in the Hairy Maclary series by Lynley Dodd, and our activity was to use make artwork using dog stencils.

Sorting Art Cards {Fancy Nancy at the Museum}

Like yesterday's selection, today's book is a vocabulary-builder as well: Fancy Nancy at the Museum by Jane O'Connor.  The Fancy Nancy books are early readers so they aren't literary classics by any means, but my girls (3.5 years old) enjoy them a lot.  In this story, Nancy goes to the art museum on a class field trip.  After an eventful bus ride, the class finally gets to the museum where they are shown the difference between portraits, landscapes, and still life paintings.  Our activity expanded on this concept, as the girls sorted art cards..

Shiny Treasure Box Made From Chocolate Wrappers

I think my family ate a few too many Reese's peanut butter cups this Halloween!  I'm glad I saved all the colorful foil wrappers, because we used them today to turn a little shoebox into a shiny treasure chest..

Colorful Beads Made from Magazines

I remember making beads out of the Sunday comics in an art class at age 9 or 10.  I tried a similar activity with my own kids - making beads out of magazines (or catalogs in my case), and not only did the girls (3 years old) absolutely love creating them, but they also turned out beautiful...

Three Dimensional Art with Colored Paper

The kids have really been into cutting and pasting lately.  I wanted to show them that their creations don't always have to be two-dimensional, so one day when we were all working side-by-side, I started manipulating my scraps of paper to make them stand out from the page in different ways.  L and E were very interested and asked me to show them how to make these types of creations too...

Autumn Tree Craft

We celebrated the first day of Autumn with this fall tree craft made out of a paper towel roll and colored paper.  I actually did this activity with the girls last year, and it is so neat to see how now as three-year-olds they can complete the project almost independently.  It was really easy, and I think the results are beautiful.  Here's the process...

Card-Decorating Station

The girls have had some sort of extracurricular class every day this week (gymnastics, swimming, music, dance), and I don't think they've been getting enough sleep, so the combination of extra excitement and lack of sleep as made them moody lately.  They both are enthusiastic about our Homeschool Preschool activity boxes, but then either end up fighting with each other over silly little things (like who is sitting in which chair, etc..), or end up being resistant to certain things (for example, we were making letters out of pieces of plastic drinking straws and L made the letters "T", "A", and "H" all on their own, but when I rearranged them as H-A-T and asked her to read the word, she yelled "It spells HAT, and I'm not going to read any more words!").  I've also been busy with my own personal project, so if the girls seem to lose interest with a 'school' activity, I let them play on their own while I work.  Anyway, although our typical schedule has not been as consistent this week as the previous 3 weeks, I always try to fit in some form of art activity - the creative tasks seem to occupy the girls for a long amount of time with limited arguing (except the occasional fight over not sharing the crayons).  Today I set up a Card-Decorating Station with dot paints, letter stamps, tracing, cutting, and gluing.  Here's what we did....

Intro to Writing Stories

After doing some painting last week, I asked L and E (3 years old) if they wanted to write stories about their artwork. I tried not to provide too much guidance - I just wrote what they told me to write. Here's what they came up with...

Open-the-Door House Craft

My mother gave me the idea for having the girls (3 years old) make their own interactive books with flaps to open, things that pop up, etc..  We started with this simple craft featuring a house with a door that you can open and close.  Although they needed assistance, I tried to let them do as much as possible on their own.  Here's the process..

Creating Designs with Toys and Household Objects

One of L and E's favorite activities is to use various toys and household objects to create large-scale artwork on our floor.  I have to admit that this is a fun activity for me, as well.  The above photo uses pieces from a letter construction game, but we've used everything from building blocks to markers to plastic animals to create our masterpieces.  Here are some more examples I just have to share..

Masking Tape Resist Painting

I mixed up our usual painting routine by giving L and E (3 years old) some painters tape and creating tape-resist artwork.  It's really easy to do and produces neat results.  The tape (both sticking it on and peeling it off) added some new fine motor-skills practice, and the girls had a great time..

Sticky Mosaics

I usually don't review many products on this blog because, well, I haven't been approached by any companies to do reviews, so if I mention a specific product it's because I really really like it.  I do want to mention something fun that engaged both my girls (almost 3 years old) for well over an hour this week.  It's the My First Sticky Mosaics activity from The Orb Factory.  It is basically little foam stickers in various shapes and colors which are placed on color-coded spots on sturdy cardboard to make a mosaic.  We've had this product since the girls were 2 years old, but at the time, only L had the fine motor skills (and patience) to complete a picture (with a lot of assistance from me).  Earlier this week, I took this activity out and was amazed at how carefully and patiently the girls finished their mosaics...