Below you will find project ideas for looking at and creating art with your child.  Quality art projects will long be remembered and cherish, as well as, the quality time spent to create them. 

Designer Look-a-Like
T-Shirt, Tennis Shoes, and Headband

Start with White, Black or other solid color T-Shirt, Tennis Shoes, and Headband.  Create your own designs applied with fabric paint, or fabric crayons.  You will need 3 of each-One for Dad, Mom, and Child
Variations-Designs Socks, Visors, Sunglasses or . . .
Use your own original designs or create a theme such as Wildlife Preservation.  You can find many free coloring sheets on the web.

Project #2

Make a special greeting card for Grandma, Grandpa or another relative.  Or create a special greeting and take it to a neighborhood nursing home.  Read Louisa Fox's heartwarming story to your child, "Every Monday in the Mailbox," about a little girl that has a very special relationship with a lady in a nursing home. 

Read one chapter from a classic story such as "Charlotte's Web," and create a shoebox that best describes one event in the story.  After reading the story, ask the child to draw a picture of what they most remember in the story.  This will serve as inspiration for your shoebox.  Many department stores are more than happy to give away shoeboxes, especially, for a worthy art project.  Visit the website at
http://www.artmuseums.com/library.htm

Charlotte's Web

Project #4

Create a Self-Image Collage with your child.  Ask them to create a collage about you.  Guide them through the artistic process but don't give too much instruction.  They will learn the process that the artist goes through to create a work of art and you will learn something about how your child sees you.

Project #5

You will need a paper plates, paint, and a string to hang your paper plate art work.  Dip your hand into paint, dip your child's hand into the paint, apply both hands to a paper plate making a print.  On the outside edges write "We Help Each Other," punch a hole, tie at top and hang.

#6-Father/Daughter Hands Early American Sampler
Trace your hand and your daughter's onto a piece of fabric.  Use
white tailor's chalk to trace your hands.  After cutting "hands"  from
fabric,  glue hands to a black piece of felt, and fold top of felt over
l" and glue, creating a slip for placing a dowel for hanging.

#7-Many cultures of the world including Africa and Australia engage
in body painting.  Children love this non messy hand and arm body
painting.  First, trace the outline of your daughter's arm and hand
onto white construction paper.  Next, ask her to create designs using
wax crayons.  Outline the arm and hand drawing with wax crayon also.
Now using black or brown water color paints, ask her to paint over
the wax crayon.  You will have an authentic faux tribal arm and hand
painting that can be cut out and glued to a colorful construction
paper, and your daughter has learned the technique of wax resistant
painting.

#8-A great inexpensive investment is wooden shapes sometimes known
as "Woodsies," or "Woodl's."  The shapes are wooden circles, squares,
triangles, and ovals of various sizes.  You and your daughter will
enjoy putting the various shapes together to create animals and fun
designs.  The wooden shapes are small enough to be glued together,
painted, and glazed and make great refrigerator magnets, and
decorative pins.  You can buy magnets and pin backings in the craft
stores.

#9-A great project that will take you outdoors is rock painting.
Find an unusual rock and imagine what kind of creature it might be.
Just a little paint and imagination and it comes to life.

#10-Another outdoor project is shadow drawing.  It just takes a piece
of paper and pencil.  Hold the paper under a leaf or interesting
branch shape and just trace the shadow that it makes.

#11-Textural rubbings are also of great interest to children this
age.  Again, it just requires a sheet of paper, and pencil, and
a hunt for interesting textures.  Just lay the paper onto the
texture and then use the side of the pencil to create the rubbing.
After several textures are collected ask her to create, cut out
the rubbings into various shapes and put them together into a
textural drawing.

#12-Speaking of drawing.  One of the fun experiences of childhood
is drawing a parent's face.  It just requires a little patience on
your part as the model.  You can use this exercise to show her that
her face is symmetrical, that her pupils line up with the corners of
her mouth, and the inside of her eyes lineup with the outside of
her nostrils.  She might even be surprised that her earlobes create
an even line between her nose and mouth.

 

Bring Colonial American Art History into the Lesson

Mom and Me Sampler Project

Materials Needed

Construction Paper
Glue
Scissors
Fabrics
Fabric Remnants
Pencil
Paper
chalk
wooden dowel
jute

Instructions

Trace one mom hand and one child hand onto sheet of paper.
Use the hand tracing as a template to cut a fabric hand from 
fabric scraps.
Glue, the fabric hand on to the construction paper.  Embellish remainder of sampler  with bits and pieces.  Use chalk to make faux stitch marks around the
edges of the hand shapes.
Roll the top of the construction paper.
Tie the jute to the ends and hang.

Visit Colonial Williamsburg for more fun and history.

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