Earth Day always sneaks up on me and sometimes I even miss it! But this year I am here to help you get organized and be prepared to celebrate Earth Day all month long, with 40 ways to use nature and recyclables in art and creative play with kids! The very best and most simple…
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Cardboard Faces
Sometimes it takes me a while to write about a project, especially since this whole pandemic! I’ve been focusing on our Learning Guides and have neglected writing new posts. But today I am pulling myself together and writing about these cardboard faces we made last Spring in our weeklong Recycled Materials Camp! I was so…
Art and Play Activity Guide for Learning at Home / Week 6
This week we celebrate the fiber arts as we play around with FABRIC & YARN! Yay!! It’s also Earth Day on Wednesday so we’ll be honoring Mother Earth, too. Many of us are spending time decluttering and cleaning out closets. This week we’ll use some of our old clothes for fabric collage, or cut up…
Art and Play Activity Guide for Learning at Home / Week 3
Welcome back to Week 3 of our Art and Play Activity Guide for Learning at Home! Shannon and I hope these guides have been helping you loosely frame your days. Children need routine because it makes them feel safe and more relaxed. And parents need routine because it allows them to find some time for…
Cardboard Bird Sculptures
Ah, my old friend cardboard is back with a new but familiar look! Today I want to share these amazing cardboard bird sculptures that my art campers made. I got the idea for these from the IG account @marymakingart, and we were also inspired by the artist Clare Youngs, who is an incredibly talented cardboard animal artist…
Dioramas with Kids // Inspired by Artist Mano Kellner
I discovered artist Mano Kellner on Pinterest and was immediately drawn to her “art boxes”. They are very curious, quite charming, and even a bit mystical. I was so inspired by this one that I immediately started to plan how I could make something similar with my art students. I decided on making dioramas using the…
“Face the Foliage” Inspired Flower Portraits with Kids
Do you all know Justina Blakeney? She’s a designer and artist who lives in New York and I just LOVE her style! I can’t get enough of her patterns and colors and everything that she creates. She has several IG accounts. Her most famous is @TheJungalow. But today I want to share with you her…
Paper Plate Flower Masks
I love figuring out ways to use stuff that I already have in my closet. With Springtime in full bloom, these paper plate flower masks are the perfect idea. We’ve made things with paper plates before, like these party hats and these washi-tape trays. Paper plates are a hidden secret for art teachers. If I…
Giant Recycled Egg Carton Village | A Process Art Collaboration
A few weeks ago in my Spring Break art camp, I created this giant recycled egg carton village by gluing almost 50 egg cartons into a huge box. My art students loved this process art collaboration because there were no rules (other than don’t splatter paint on people) and they could really use their imaginations…
Earth Day Signs with Repurposed Materials
It’s almost Earth Day! We made these Earth Day signs with repurposed materials just in the nick of time. I’m hoping my art students will do a little march around their neighborhood on Monday 🙂 I save many of our old clothes that have ripped or are just worn out and I cut them up into…