“Can I cut this??” My three year old asked me holding up one of the school photos from last year!
“No!” I gasped, thankful that he had asked me before he began creating his masterpiece.
Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest things. While I wouldn’t let Noah cut up his sisters school photo and glue it onto a box, it did give me an idea for creating some photos he could cut and paste with!
I went a little crazy finding and printing photos of animals, buildings, random things… and of course of my kids. Then all I had to do is dump the photos, scissors, glue and markers onto the table, and step back and watch them create these crazy photo collages!
These are my favourite kinds of activities, where my kids are already dreaming up what they will do before I am even done collecting the materials. It wasn’t long before all of them were busy cutting and pasting and laughing… there was a lot of laughing!
At one point I did have to step in and ask whether we needed to make a rule about only using our own photos, or if we could all agree it was just for fun and we would not complain or get upset if our head ended up on some other creature… thankfully everyone agreed that it is was just for fun, and so the laughter continued!
This open-ended project was perfect for everyone, from the three year old to 41 year old (ahem… that’s me!). We all had a great time cutting, pasting and creating whatever we could dream up.
We made weird animals like a giraffe with two heads and wings, and a guinea pig bear! We made funny people, like penguin Morgan, Noah Horse, and a lion man who seems to be wearing Morgan’s pajamas! We even made some scary beasts like the crazy monster building giant!
All the images we used, apart from the photos of my kids, are public domain images and came from Pixabay. You can search Pixabay images by category and find all kinds of images to use. I converted all the images to black and white to save on printer ink and so that we could add our own colour.
You can download the five page photo pdf we used to make the collages here.
After an hour all we were left with were scraps…
I wonder what we can do with them!?
Emma @ P is for Preschooler says
This looks so fun (I would totally want to get in on it too!). It’s a great way to practice cutting and get creative!
Christie - Childhood 101 says
So much fun! What a great idea :)
Em @ snowingindoors says
This looks great, it’s definitely getting added to the summer bucket list, thanks Kate, everytime I read your blog I go away with another activity to try with my kiddos xx
Kate - Laughing Kids Learn says
This is such a great idea and I love that you’ve given some photos to print out! Yes, glad Noah asked you about the school photo. LOL
Veens @ Our Ordinary Life says
Ohhh! How absolutely FUN! I am going to download and do them today :) Good thing, I had nothing planned :)
Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says
Love this idea! It reminded me a little of Salvador Dali work.
Maxabella says
Tops idea, Kate. x
Emma T says
Great idea. My son would love the cutting part the most!
Laura says
I did this with my class yesterday and they loved it! They thought it was hilarious – we had giant children looming over castles, trees growing out of people’s heads, lions roaring in people’s ears…! Thank you for providing the images in such an easy format.
Ana says
Love it! Collage was one of my favorite art projects as a kid!
Tracey in Hong Kong says
I love this, my printer is busy already!
Thanks a million for such a simple yet fabulous idea.
Tracey
Mummy to Isabella & Leila