Posts Tagged ‘art’

Shadow Puppets Behind a Sheet

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

shadow-puppetsI tied a rope to two trees and hung up a white bed sheet. The sun shone through the sheet, so the kids started doing pantomime and shadow puppets with their fingers. This was a completely unexpected activity, since I hung up the sheet for the kids to do a painting. (You can see what they painted here.)

You can also do shadow puppets on a white wall while projecting a bright light toward the wall in a dark room. Slide projectors without a slide in them work especially well. The children combine their fingers into different shapes to make animals and objects. You can even play a game of charades by silently acting out a shadow puppet and trying to get the other people to guess what object you are making. Shadow puppets are great fun!

Glow-in-the-Dark Chalk

Monday, August 27th, 2012

glow-in-the-dark-chalk

For my daughter’s birthday, she received a kit of glow-in-the-dark chalk. It was super easy to make. All you had to do was shake the glow powder and chalk powder in a small container, add a small amount of water, and pour it into a mold. The box said that the chalk would harden in half an hour, but it was not hard whatsoever within that time frame. It was more like an hour, and even then, the chalk was sort of soft and had to be handled carefully to not crumble in your hands.

But it worked. The chalk (especially the yellow and green) glowed in the dark as my children drew pictures all over the driveway one night. It was super fun. The red and blue glowed a little bit, not nearly as much as the yellow and green. This is definitely an activity worth doing with your children, since my kids kept squealing with joy as we were adding more and more details to our glow-in-the-dark chalk masterpieces.

Paint by Number

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

paint-by-number-1You would think that paint by number would decrease creativity in children, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. My son learned how to shade horses by doing a paint by number. We bought the kit at a craft supply store. The thin canvas has an outline of the picture, with numbers inside each area. The number corresponds to a color. For example, number 8 is light blue. You go ahead and paint each area the correct colors until you finish the painting.

paint-by-number-2Later on I noticed that my son was drawing horses freehand. When he colored in the horses with colored pencils, he shaded the mane in the same way that he did for the paint by number. So his artistic skill increased because of the paint by number. Now the beautiful painting of horses can be seen in the hallway of our home. (Actually, another son painted the horses in my hallway. We gave the collection of horses as a gift to Grandma, who owned horses for years. You can see one of our horse paint by numbers in the YouTube video “Hallway Art Gallery.”)

paint-by-number-3paint-by-number-4

 

Making a Patriotic Collage

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

patriotic-collage

Making a Patriotic Collage

To make a patriotic collage, start with a poster board or large piece of construction paper. I like to choose a color instead of starting with white. My kids chose blue, but you could also start with red. It should be one of the colors of the American flag. Now cut out pictures from magazines that remind you of being an American, like an eagle, Mount Rushmore, or some American soldiers. You can do the entire collage just with pictures from magazines, with people eating apple pie, playing baseball, or doing any other typical American activity.

patriotic-poster

Write “America” on the top in bubble letters, and color in the letters with red, white, and blue crayons or colored pencils. You could also cut out bubble letters from construction paper or use large alphabet stickers instead. You can add patriotic cloth or napkins with the American flag to add texture. Color a map of the United States, and cut it out and glue it to your poster. Overlap all your pictures so that there is no poster showing except for the title. Now your gorgeous patriotic collage is finished. Hang it up on the wall for everyone to enjoy.