I have four little girls who love art and being creative. When we found out school was closed due to COVID-19, we sat down and talked about things we could do to keep the day interesting and fun. All the girls asked if we could have a craft time and do a craft or art project every day. Every day was a little too much for me, so we compromised that on school days, once they finish all their required school work, we would do a craft together. Little did I know when I agreed to do this, that it would be one of the most special and look forward too times of the day. Every morning the girls would ask what craft we were doing for the day. Every day, they spent way longer then the half hour I allotted to make a craft or art project. I spent some time on the internet and Pinterest looking up school art projects. The girls helped me pick activities and save them to a Pinterest board so they would be easy to find. It usually took two to three days to finish one project, so I was happy with that. All of the arts and craft stores are closed right now, so we had to do projects with material we already had in the house. I did make an amazon order for a few things we would need later. Since we had Saint Patrick's Day and Easter, It was easy to do holiday projects. Big Sis and M&M really wanted to do nail art, so we decided we would make our St. Patrick's Day project a four leaf clover using nails and string. All the kids were able to do their own four leaf clover. I helped monster and the three girls didn't need any help. Big Sis and M&M helped me hammer all the nails in the night before. The kids did such a good job and all their projects turned out super cute. Believe it or not, but this is the first St. Patricks decoration we have ever had in our house.
Finding Easter projects was super easy. The kids really wanted to make some Easter eggs using balloons and yarn. They got their fingers all messy as they dipped the yarn in a glue and water solution then squeezed off the excess. We learned that you need to put a lot of yarn around the balloon for the egg shape too hold after popping the balloon. Most of the kids just put a few strands around the balloon, so we only had three yarn eggs survive the popping of the balloon without imploding.
Another Easter project that they enjoyed was making jelly bean wreaths. Monster enjoyed it best as he only put one single row on his wreath then ate all the rest of the jelly beans that were supposed to be put on his wreath. We first tried to use elmers glue to stick the jelly beans on the wreath, but that was a flop. We ended up having to use a hot glue gun. I got quite a few burn battle wounds from this project and the glue gun. I was surprised at how extremely heavy the wreaths were when they were finished. The kids all took their wreaths and put them on their doors or on book shelves.
One of the favorite projects that we did were yarn Easter animals. We watched a tutorial on how to make a yarn ball using forks, then we all grabbed a fork and made yarn balls. We then turned the yarn balls into chicks and bunnies.
After Easter we moved away from crafts and started doing more arts. I found a cool technique online called fluid art, and we decided to try it out. We took different color of acrylic paints and added stuff to it, like soap, oil, alcohol, water and such. We poured the solution paint on paper and picked up the paper to make it roll around on the paper and thin out. We then took a popsicle stick and brushed it along the top of the paper to move the fluid around. As we did that, different colors would sink and others would pop up to the top. It was one of the coolest things we did. The kids each went back and made two to three fluid paintings. This one ended up being a super neat art project, but also a science experience as we discussed why some of the colors sunk and other would pop up.
One of my personal favorite art projects that we did was the cityscape oil pastel resistence paining. Each of the kids chose the city that the were going to draw a cityscape for. M&M chose Rome, Big Sis chose London, Little A chose Chiang Mia, and I chose Singapore. We used permanent marker to trace our drawing of the cityscape. We then used oil pastels to color in windows, lights, the moon and the reflection in the water. Then we used watercolors to make a night lighting in the sky using blacks, purples and blues. I loved the way these turned out and the kids all loved making them. They have all requested to do this project again and try to create all the cities we have traveled to.
Another project that turned out super cool was the Banyan Tree art. We saw some of these trees while we were in Cambodia, so it was fun talking about the trees and looking back at our pictures from Cambodia. The kids then each drew a tree with large trunks and limbs. I gave them the option to include the branches that grew straight down from the limbs or not. They then painted the tree black with acrylic paint (because that is all we have). The next day, we used oil pastels and blending to color in the spaces in the tree limbs with like colors. The kids took their time and all of them loved the ways the colors blended. Once the tree was done, I let them choose whatever they wanted to do for the background of the picture. I think these all turned out really marvelous.
These are just a few projects that we have done the past almost two months. It has been so fun watching the kids get super creative. I am excited when frame stores open, so I can get these all framed and hung on the wall. We continue to do fun art projects and continue to keep the creative juices flowing. COVID-19 might be keeping us close to home, but it can't squash our creativity.
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