Summer is a great time for trying something new. Kids can learn about a different type of art they are curious about. It doesn’t matter what their skill level, only if they are interested in doing an art project. Art projects can be fun for a group of kids to do. This is a great project to plan ahead for a rainy day, so you have something ready when a rainy day appears and things look gloomy.
Visiting a museum and learning about a painter or a different type of artist (like a sculptor). If an adult visits the museum ahead of time, or perhaps over the internet and learns about what paintings are there, they may be able to plan enough information to create some type of a scavenger hunt where kids hunt for clues in the museum but they don’t actually collect items from the museum. Children of all ages would have fun with this active puzzle and would enjoy learning a bit about art appreciation at the same time in a casual way. It is best not to plan on tackling the entire museum at once, simply visiting one or two collections – perhaps staying for an hour to an hour and a half is enough time in a museum for most children.
Making tie die t-shirts and sheets to enjoy for the summer months (may need adult help depending on their age). Tie die can be quite simple to do, all it takes is items made from cotton fabric, such as t-shirts, sheets or sweatshirts and tie die. Make sure you and the children are wearing clothing that you are okay if it gets a tie die stain on, and keep a stain remover around while you are working. It is probably best to start with using a single color for tie die, you can still get great effects and then to work up to working with several colors. You can even tie die your socks!
Taking photographs of the family on vacation and making their own album or learning about scrapbooking. Girls will love to learn about scrapbooking especially, but boys have also shown an interest in scrapbooking. A family vacation is a great way to get started on the scrapbooking hobby. Encourage your child to take lots of photographs of the family and scenes from the family vacation. Also encourage them to collect items they could use for scrapbooking such as postcards and maps – paper items especially are easiest to scrapbook with. This is a great hobby that can be done year-round.
Learning about an old fashioned craft from long ago, such as embroidery. This combines a love of art and a love of history. If your child shows a great interest in history, do some research together and learn about the crafts from that time. There may be a great craft that your child can learn how to do. This will be very interesting and will give them something they can talk about when school starts. It could make a great school project or paper. More importantly, it could spark a real love for this historical period or historical crafts from simply starting this one project – you never know where something will lead to.
Try origami. Origami is the simple art of paper folding to make all sorts of items, especially lots of animals. It comes from Japan. There are very simple origami forms and then there are more advanced origami forms that are quite intricate. You would be quite surprised just how quickly children can pick up on this art, and how fast they can learn advanced forms when they show an interest. There are even origami clubs, through Origami USA.
Doing a craft project that helps a charity, such as making fleece blankets for The Linus Project. The Linus Project looks for fleece blankets or knitted or crocheted blankets. This can be a great project for a child because the blankets do not need to be very large. This will also encourage your child to think of others, and to see that they can use their love of art and creativity to do so. There are many crafting organizations out there looking for many different types of crafts, try a google.com search for the type of craft your child likes to do and see what you can find.
