Art Activities for Primary Grades
Art provides children in the primary grades with a host of benefits. While the students have fun manipulating the materials associated with art, they are learning colors, shapes and patterns, not to mention developing fine motor skills and learning how to creatively express themselves. Design art activities to give children new experiences and encourage their creativity.
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Pointillism Creations
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Teach children about pointillism, a style of painting that uses small dots grouped together to create a larger image. Provide children with art paper, templates of various objects--such as flowers, hearts and animals--a variety of colors of tempera paint, and a collection of pencils with unused erasers. Each student chooses a template and uses a pencil to trace it onto the art paper. Then the child dips pencil erasers into paint and covers the shape with dots to give it a pointillism appearance.
Food as Art
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Children will enjoy using everyday items to create works of art. Purchase a variety of fruits and vegetables from the grocery store--hard items are best for this project, such as peppers, apples, carrots and pears. Also purchase types of pasta, cereals, nuts, sprinkles and any other food item that you think can go into artwork. Slice the fruits and vegetables in halves or quarters and lay them out on plates. Place the other food items in bowls. Set out art paper, glue, crayons, paint brushes, markers and paint. Encourage students to use their creativity and the objects provided to make unique pieces of art. They may dip the fruits and vegetables into the paint to make imprints on their paper, glue food items onto the paper and use the crayons and markers to add color.
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Creative Creatures
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Children use their creativity to invent new species of animals with this art activity. From clip art, print out images of animals--tigers, zebras, sharks, dogs. Print out several copies of each animal. Discuss each of the animals with your students, reviewing its name and traits. Inform children that they are going to use parts of these animals to create new animals. Set out construction paper, scissors, glue, crayons, markers and colored pencils. Have children cut off pieces of animals and glue them together--creating new animals. For instance, the head of a lion, the legs of a giraffe and the tail of a dog make a new animal creation. Have children use the crayons, markers and colored pencils to draw habitats around their creatures. Instruct them to create names and back stories for their new animals and share them with the class.
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