I teach art to small children in my house. Every week I set up new art experiences and carefully pick out my materials. I often get asked by moms which materials they should buy to create their own art area at home. This question always gets me excited for two reasons: 1) Maybe I’ve influenced…
Process Art
Painted Wooden Blocks
When the kids walked into art class last week and saw wooden blocks and paint, they couldn’t believe it! Were they really allowed to paint on them? One little girl told us a story about how she once drew on wooden blocks. She said her mom didn’t get mad. Then they all started to chat…
A Painted Branch // Collaborative Art with Kids
This week for art class I tried something new. Our neighbor cut down some branches and left them on our property. They’d been there a while, actually. We kept thinking they would clean them up. As I was staring at them from the kitchen window Monday morning I thought that I should really make a…
Paper Bag Art Journal for Kids
Over the summer, I had art camp here every day for five weeks. On day one of each new session, the first thing we did was make an art journal. It was something that could be used throughout the week, if the kids were done with their projects early, or if they had an idea…
Scrape Painting with Kids
Process art is such a prominent word in art education. There are many people who can write about it much better than I can, like Meri Cherry, Stephanie from Twodaloo, and Mary Catherine from Fun-a-Day. If you want to dig a little deeper then definitely click on the links. In a nutshell, process art just means child-led…
Making Art with Bubbles
A few weeks ago I received a surprise package ~ the new book by Holly Homer and Rachel Miller! These two ladies have an incredibly successful blog that you should follow immediately called Kids Activities Blog. They sent me a free copy, just because they like me I think. I immediately opened it and started folding down…
Watercolor Garland {paint with Q-tips}
I am so in love with these garlands that the 4-yr olds made in art camp last week. This technique was such a success that the kids asked to do it again the next day! They LOVED painting with q-tips. And I swear, there was literally no way to make these mini paintings look bad….
Paper Bag Crowns
I love the way these crowns turned out. I don’t know what my vision was exactly…probably something more refined – ha! But since this was an open-ended project, I just gave the 4-yr olds their plain crowns and their art supplies and they made each their very own. I don’t think I could have imagined…
Shoe Box Castles
Last week in art camp the 4-yr olds made these beautiful castles. They were totally into it! We made them over a period of three days, with drying time. When they finally took them home, they were completely sturdy and ready for imaginary play! This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support! Here’s…
Make Art Mail
We had a very exciting art class this week becasue the kids made mail! The 3-yr olds spent 40 minutes using watercolors to paint cards and envelopes. They were so excited to put them in the mailbox that I had to blow-dry their paintings so that they could mail them out ASAP. This post contains…
