Art Education

My personal favorite art projects, clubs, and activities for grades K-5th

Projects

Quick and Simple Activities

Collaborative tree mural

This project was created over the course of 4, one hour long, art club meetings, with 15 students ranging in grades 1st through 5th

Week 1: We used salt and water color to create our backgroud while learning about warm colors

Week 2: We collected leaves from outside, and took them inside to trace and color them using oil pastel

Week 3: This week we spit into two teams, one group coloring the branches, and the other creating fall decor to add to our tree

Week 4: We assembled our tree with the numbers on the back of the tiles, and glued down our leaves and decorations.

Birch tree forest project

This was a 2 week project for an art club, with students 1st through 5th.

Week 1: We painted our backgrounds learning about what colors go next to each other to blend. After we finished we used cut up strips of card board to paint with. Students would tap the cardboard in black paint and lightly run it across white paper.

Week 2: We cut our black and white paper into thin strips and glued them to the background. We then took our projects outside and painted with toothbrushes (this was by far their favorite part!) We dipped the toothbrushes in white paint and flicked them to create a white snow splatter.

Collaborative Animation

This project was created by the entire afterschool program and even some staff. I created a black and white 2D animation, printed each frame, scanned them, cleaned the edges, then reassembled them into a video. Students loved watching their coloring come to life. This project was hefty, and there was a total of 345 frames that needed to be colored. In order to accomplish all this work, I made a competition to see which group could get the most frames done during enrichment time.

Crochet Butterflies

I took on this springtime project after moving to a kinder program. I love to crochet, and after coming across a butterfly pattern (linked at the bottom) I knew I had to make some for them. I was inspired by teachers online who knit hats their students designed.

I had all 20 of our students color a butterfly, and had fun bringing their creative designs to life. Before giving them out, I strung them together to display for the final few months of the school year.

Pattern I used:

https://www.crochet365knittoo.com/crochet-butterfly-pattern/

Crochet Club

This club required lots of prep along with trial and error. I started by crocheting the first few rows of each student's project to give them a nice base to work with. We also used binder clips to clip the yarn they were working without in front of them so they didn't have to focus on creating tension with their left hand and instead could focus on working with the hook only. This is pictured below, along with a student's amazing work.

Also to aid in the student's creation of their project I created a video to help them when they went home.

It can be found here: https://youtu.be/-SM2qiiDXdg

Using binder clips to help with tension.

A students amazing work!

I took her project and sewed it into a simple bag.

Diamond Art Club

This was a super-loved club I ran at my school! The best way I found to run the club was by setting out labeled containers with all the different colors all over the tables before students came in. This made it so no one was waiting to switch out colors, and instead gave them a fun scavenger hunt to find the next color/letter they needed, while also giving them the chance to sit next to and talk with all the club members. For this club we bought small diamond art stickers found on amazon. I also went on to try this project with the kindergarteners at my school, and they loved it too!

Bunny Weaving

This project was part of a 5 day club, and taken on by ages 1st- 5th. I taught students how to weave and remove a square. I told them they could bring me one square to be turned into a bunny, or three to be turned into a bag. If they chose a bunny they would then help to create and attach a pom-pom tail.

Bunny pattern:

https://www.studioknitsf.com/how-to-knit-a-bunny-from-a-square-for-easter/

(I used scrap yarn instead of stuffing, and used beads for the eyes and nose instead of yarn)

Weaving Process

"I dont like bunnies, I want mine to be a mouse"

A classic white bunny

A student's woven bag!

Marker Tie Dye Printmaking

This is a great project to introduce printmaking to elementary-aged kids. Draw a design with Sharpie, color on tin foil with crayola markers, mist the tinfoil with water, and lastly press the design on top of the tinfoil. When students lift up the design, they are left with a beautiful tie-dye creation.

Sidewalk chalk Paint

This was another group favorite, although more popular amongst the younger kids. This activity is perfect for warm days, and only requires corn starch, water, and dye to create.

Getting Creative with Watercolor

This project is so fun to see what students can come up with. To prep I used watercolor to paint crazy shapes, and then challenged the studnts to try and turn that shape into something. After all the shapes were used I had them paint their own challenging shapes for the group the day after them to try.

Magnets

A loved activity by all ages! Extremely similar to the sticker process (seen below), but with foam at the bottom instead of parchment paper.

Materials:

Packing tape
Foam paper
Magnet tape
Basic Drawing supplies (paper, marker, pencils, etc...)

Stickers

By far, the favorite project I've had the kids do is DIY sticker making. This is one of the few art projects I've seen 1st and 5th graders alike excited to do.

Start with parchment paper, layer packing tape over the top, place the cut-out design on top, and cover with a second layer of tape. Cut the sticker, leaving some overlap of the tapes, so it doesn't fall apart. For older students, they were allowed to use Chromebooks as a light table to trace their favorite sports teams and characters, or to find ideas.

Creative Monster Making

Test student's creativity with this fun challenge. Fold a piece of paper in half, write their name, trace around their name, then cut. Open it up to reveal a wonky shape. The challenge is to create a monster out of this shape. Below is a student example using my name.

Back of project

Front of project

Dice Roll Drawing Activity

This is a simple, quick but well-loved activity by all grade levels. All that it requires is print outs, blank paper, something to draw with, and dice. Students roll the dice to randomly decide what they must draw next on their face/ monster. They even have fun completing the same worksheet more than once, to see the different outcomes. The printouts I used can be found at the bottom of the page under "Other Resources"

Zine Making

This activity is very simple, but very fun. It's as easy as creating a zine, and decorating it! Students who don't like drawing can have fun looking through all the past student examples. I like to encourage them to make a short story, or if that's too hard, to fill each page with something they like.

Collaborative monster drawing

This activity involves sitting in a circle, with each student having a paper. Fold it into 4 pieces, and have the first student draw a head, when they are done draw two small lines connecting to the next panel, and fold the head over, pass to the next student to draw the upper body, and repeat. We went around the circle twice: one to draw, and once to color. Students have a fun time reveling their "monsters" in the end.

Shrinky Dinks

Very simple, but very fun! All you need is a small oven, and shrink paper. Most students had fun creating their own drawings, but for those struggling with ideas I made some basic drawings that students could trace over through the transparent paper. One of these was a duck that you can see pictured to the left. They had a lot of fun watching their work shrink after they created it.

IMG_6715.mov

Teamwork Cup Stacking

Test student's teamwork skills with this fun activity!

This was my go-to rainy day activity. In order to do this I tied four laynard strings to a rubber band. First I'd have students work in pairs, then in groups of four to make the challenge harder. Also to adjust difficulty I changed what it was they had to build. Teams would race to build their pyramid the fastest, and in each round I would switch around the students to allow everyone a chance to work together.

Abstract Watercolor Painting

Super simple, and super relaxing. Draw wavy, straight, or jagged lines with a marker, and paint the white spaces with watercolor. This project was much more popular among younger students.

Other Resources:

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