Do you need some easy art ideas to try with your kids?
This list of super fun, super easy art ideas is perfect for kids of all ages!
In case you haven’t noticed, we do quite a few art activities at The Pickle Farm.
I love doing arty things as much as my kids do, which is probably the biggest reason why we do so much of it, but I also believe that art for kids should be easy!
I am busy enough, without throwing elaborate, time consuming, and expensive art projects into the mix. There is nothing that puts me off more, than a project that takes hours to set up, and even longer to clean up, or one that needs fancy equipment that I have to go out and buy. There is a time and place for art and craft projects that have fancy end products (though mine never look like the ones in the picture!), but in general, I think doing art with your kids should be simple, fun and doable!
Here are are few of the fun and easy art ideas we’ve shared this year…
All of these ideas are great process art activities that are sure to encourage creativity in your kids!
Which one will you try?
My little one is turning two in January so we are just beginning our big craft journey. But so far, her favourite craft project is bubble painting. Its loads of fun blowing the coloured bubbles through plastic straws and watching them create magic on the paper. We’ve even done a canvas painting for the wall. Quite a masterpiece in my (slightly biased) eyes!
okay, a bit daggy, but we watch the clouds and look for shapes, animals etc, then come home and draw them. If I was really cool I’d let them paint… maybe if we got some awesome paint….. how about fluro clouds!?!?! :) Wishing all the Pickle-family a Merry Christmas and an Arty 2014!
Cheers,
Lauren
Our house resembles a kinder I think! I have a craft drawers set up so the kids have access to glue sticks, scissors, sticky tape and a stapler whenever they please. These drawers also contain icy pole sticks, match sticks, chenille stems, stamps, coloured paper, colouring pages, markers of all descriptions, pencils etc. We also use a lot of recycled craft items……..boxes, bubble wrap, egg cartons, paper towel rolls….basically anything that can be reused for craft gets saved. The only thing that must be done with my supervision is painting. It’s great. often my daughter will come home from kinder and go straight to the craft drawers.
Our favourite project would have to be paper mache. Such a classic craft but so many possibilities.
We love any art we can do outside. Painting and chalk art are the top of our list. We like doing it outside because we can make a gigantic mess:)
My 4 yr old loves horses so much she happily draws, colours, paints and builds horses pretty much her entire day…everyday. My 2 yr old is a fan of body art. Sometimes my bathroom looks like a murder scene after a red paint session and he tries to clean himself up ;)
We get paper with a Christmas border from the cheap shop and get the kids to put their handprints on with paint, we then laminate them and use them all of December as paplacemats. I love looking back at the difference each year.
We love watercolours…. great for using independently… and so easy to use in lots of ways. We love watercolours on blank paper, colouring books, cards and tissue paper best! :)
Great post Kate! I loved reading all the other comments to get some fun ideas. My favorite arty activity for my kindergarten children is definitely printing. Its so versatile, I like to find a range of simple objects (duplo blocks, plastic containers, cups, foam sponges, plastic animals ect.. and give the children a couple of different colours and see what they come up with. Its great to see the children noticing the different prints and thinking about size and shape.
We made some great pencil holders – painted and coloured a wide strip of paper and then glued it around an old tin can (folding the top over the sharp tin edge).
Creative – check!
Repurposing – check!
Useful – check!
And easy – check!
My daughter and I go around the yard with a basket and collect all different leaves/flowers/bark/seeds ect.. and and make a collage by gluing them all on to a piece of paper,
also sometimes we paint one side of each item with different coloured paints and press them onto a white piece of paper to make imprints of the items she has collected. She really enjoys it and so do I <3
Pasting – we paste pieces of paper, cotton wool balls, pom poms, cupcake tin liners…. makes a lovely tactile activity and pretty artwork for display on our art wall here at home or for this time of the year as Christmas presents.
Some of my favourite artworks from my 3 preschool boys are the installations that they produce out of found objects. One of my boys independently produced an artwork from a thick piece of string with a few large beads on it and in the middle was a clothes peg tightly clasping some wild flowers and some bark. The carefully selected but simplicity of the every day objects were transformed into an item of treasure for my little boy.
Another installation consisted of patty pans of various shapes, sizes and colours, positioned in a large design on the carpeted floor. It was reminiscent of a jewelled whales tale. Some patty pans were upside down, the others the right way up and every space inside the ‘tail’ was filled with splashes of bright colour.
I love that these artworks were produced without any parental guidance and they incidentally involved many of the elements of art such as texture, colour, shape, space and line.
Both the artworks were too beautiful to be just a memory, so I photographed them and made them into coasters. The grandparents still use them to this day and the kids are very proud of them.
Fold a piece of paper,white or coloured, in half. Place two or three different coloured blobs of paint close to centre fold . Fold paper and press firmly. Open paper out and leave to dry. When dry use textas or crayon to outline and add to paint blobs to turn into spectacular coloured insects… Butterflies , dragonflies etc
My two girls love to decorate boxes with stickers or glue on just about anything. We turn it into houses or princess castles
Easiest and fun art activity in our house involves a sheet of contact paper and randomly assorted bits to stick on it!
So easy to set up and use different resources depending on the time of the year. Today I put out lots of stars and Christmas decorations which went down really well!
Our easy art activity – water in a bucket & a big paint brush in the hand & kids love to draw their masterpieces on the fence & the outer walls of home.
These is some mess of water but sun takes care of that – mum & kids are happy with this easy craft activity.
Don’t dump eggshell, use them to make an eggshell mosaic. Draw a picture, stick the scraps onto the paper and then do the painting. It’s easy to make and really fun. Maybe it will encourage those little ‘egg haters’ to eat more eggs :D
Lately we’ve been into popstick creations – things for the Christmas tree decorated with glitter textas and spangly bits glued on; boxes to keep treasures in; creatures with googly eyes and pipe cleaner legs.