art
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Paper Snowflakes – Elevated!
It’s been COLD here, so I’ve been spending all of my time inside. For me, that always leads to crafting! My daughter wanted to cut paper snowflakes, so we got out the paper and scissors and went to town. I feel in love with a couple of my surprise designs and wanted to take them a little farther. It turned into a fun, calming project that would be great for children of any age, so of course I had to share it here. I started with a simple paper snowflake, here’s one before opening it up – which is always the best part! And the the dramatic reveal of what…
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DIY Kids Turkey Keepsakes
There’s a reason that the handprint turkey is still a standard Thanksgiving craft – it’s timeless and universally loved. We made this cute handprint before my daughter’s first Thanksgiving, and we look forward to pulling it out every year and comparing her hand size. There are so many ways to create family keepsakes with a simple handprint turkey. Here are a few of them:
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Fall Leaf Mosaics
It’s been a strange fall season so far – it hasn’t felt much like fall weather-wise, but I’m still yearning for all of the coziness and autumn colors. I’ve got a perfect fall preschool art project for you today! These mosaics require multiple steps (which mean that they can be on your lesson plans for a few days) and they target fine motor skills, sorting and categorizing, planning and execution, and artistic expression. To create beautiful leaf mosaics your class will first need to collect leaves in a wide variety of colors. This can be done on your program’s playground, on a walk in the neighborhood, a field trip to…
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Preschool Nature Mobile
Here’s another really easy fall activity for your lesson plans! This nature mobile requires children to collect the natural materials, and then some artistic planning involved in putting it all together. Once the mobile is complete you can also introduce a scientific component with identifying the objects and watching how they change as they hang in your classroom. This is an excellent way to explore the plants in your specific area. You can take a walk to gather materials as a group, or ask families to donate items that they find around their homes. I grabbed a long twig and used that to hang all of the items from. Introducing…
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Autumn Scribble Art
If you’re looking for an easy, low prep, and super powerful art experience this post is for you! Scribble art is developmentally appropriate for every age and can be done with materials that you already have. To make this really fit the fall season I stuck with traditional autumn colors, but it can be done with any color scheme which makes it an experience that you can revisit multiple times throughout the year with very different results each time. You’ll need paper, black markers or crayons, and colored markers or crayons. You can choose to have each child create their own art or use a larger sheet of paper for…
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Making Leprechaun Traps
Designing and building leprechaun traps has become one of our favorite traditions. I think the planning and creating is just as much fun as the anticipation of seeing if they’ll actually catch anything! This is one of those projects that really evokes my favorite memories of the kinds of activities that I loved as a child – the opportunity to use any and all materials to create something that I can see in my mind. That’s definitely a major reason that this stays on my plans year after year. Here are some of the supplies that I make sure to have available when it’s time to build our leprechaun traps:…
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Christmas Coloring Freebie
I’m working on a little something new, and while that won’t be ready until after the new year, I did want to share a little sample with you! Here’s my latest freebie, just in time for Christmas. Please enjoy these holiday coloring pages, made using my very own clipart. Go download your set here (scroll all of the way down and click on the coloring page image)! If you’re interested in the coordinating clipart please explore my Christmas Bright clipart bundle, and my Peppermint Wonderland clipart bundle.
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Genius Painting Solution!
I shared this incredible find on my instagram yesterday – but had to put it here too! I spotted this paint tray at the Dollar Tree and quickly scooped a couple up for myself. This would be the BEST art solution for the classroom. A place for individual paint (or glue, or small collage materials, or beads, or…) an easy to clean surface, and it closes so that children can come back to a project later. It’s like a preschool art miracle! These are available in stores, but you can also order in bulk on the Dollar Tree website – a case of 24 at a time (it’s like they…
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DIY Art Supply Kit
*This post contains affiliate links* I’ve been looking at art supply kits like this one, and this one, for months. I love the idea of them – all of those great supplies right at your fingertips! It definitely makes creativity feel easy and inviting. Plus, everything is easy to access, which means that children can use it independently and I’m not using my precious time finding and opening supplies. I haven’t been able to pull the trigger because every kit that I find includes one or two things that I don’t need or want. So I finally took matters into my own hands and put together a DIY art supply…
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Easter Art Projects
Here’s a collection of the art projects that we’ve been working on for Easter. The classics are classics for a reason, and the woven placemats were especially a hit! We used a mixture of shaving cream and white glue to paint these soft bunnies. For the bows we added a little food coloring. We also mixed some shaving cream and food coloring, then dipped paper egg cutouts to create swirled patterns on the eggs. Finally, we used the leftover strips from our placemats to make a paper chain. The colors are all super happy and the finished products remind me of my favorite projects from my own childhood. That’s what…
