Art Activities for Week of the Young Child

Collage

• Recycle household items into a collage. Glue buttons, string, cut-up cereal boxes, magazine pictures, wrapping paper and similar elements to a piece of construction paper or heavy cardboard. Create a familiar picture---whether grandma or the family pet---with the items, or go abstract.

Glitter Art

• Glitter and glue will make an ordinary picture sparkle. Highlight a crayon sketch or a painting with shiny accents, or use glitter on its own to create a portrait.

Musical Inspiration

• Draw a picture while listening to powerful music, whether classical or contemporary. Encourage your child to let the music inspire the mood of the piece.

Build a Road

• Make a cardboard racetrack, train track or airport runway from thin cardboard boxes like shoeboxes and cereal boxes. Use the broad, flat pieces for the bottom and trim the thin sides to make the walls of the track. Attach the cardboard pieces with staples, tape or glue and then place blocks under different points to make ramps, hills and bridges.

Your Own Storybook

• Take notes as your child narrates a story, then let him draw pictures to illustrate it. Staple the pages together to make a book and help your son put his name on the front cover.

Mask-Making

• Create masks from construction paper or cardboard. Cut out the eyeholes, then decorate with markers, paint or crayons. Add feathers, buttons, glitter and other embellishments. Attach an open-ended rubber or elastic band with staples. Alternatively, make a robot head or an astronaut's helmet from a cardboard box.

Sculpture

• Make modern-art sculptures with various colors of clay and household items. Make a shape or figure with clay, then add Popsicle sticks, spoons, buttons, string or paint to bring it to life.

Outdoor Art

• Beautiful days give your child a broader canvas. Use thick sidewalk chalk to draw on the driveway or front steps, or walk barefoot in water-soluble paint to create humorous tracks up to the house. This can also be done by making an animal, bird or monster footprint out of cardboard and attaching it to a stick or broom handle. Place the "foot" in paint and then firmly push it onto the sidewalk.

Make a Nest

• Weave together leaves, grass and sticks to make a bird's nest. Leave the nest outside in a tree for a real bird to find, or bring it inside and make a bird figure out of twigs for the legs, batting or cotton balls for the body, construction paper for the beak and wings, and googly eyes.

Museum Day

• Take a day to visit an art museum or gallery for inspiration. To prepare a young child for a museum trip, look for interesting artwork on the museum's website and then make a treasure hunt out of finding them on-site. A good tip is to look for paintings with children in them, or that contain your child's favorite color. Sign up for children's art programs, or find a children's art corner, then sit and copy paintings in the museum or create originals.