Art project challege!?

Question

I need to plan 8days worth of art projects that would be age-appropriate for kids ranging from 3 to about 7. Rather than working with any themes, I'll list the supplies I have... does anyone have any creative, cute, child-directed art project ideas that I can make only using these items? 10 points for creativity, efficiency, and not suggesting I buy anything, because I have NO BUDGET for this. Also, I'll have up to 30 kids per project.

I have: lots of colored construction paper, plain white copy paper, paper lunch bags, popsicle sticks (plain and colored) tons of beads and string, some little sea-shells, about 14 legal-sized sheets of foam paper, lots of tissue paper, tinfoil, wax paper, paper plates and cups, about 30 brand new markers, a bag of old crayons, glue, and scissors.

I do NOT have: paint, glitter, or cotton balls.

Ok, go!

Answer 1

It is very, very important that you do not create "project" type crafts for these kids. Their individual expression needs to be seen, so this works in your advantage, and the fact that you have not given any themes to work with, is even better for me to help you. Ok. So fine motor skills are big with this stuff, so you can use the construction paper for cutting, observe them with their grip, don't try and force the younger ones to hold it the right way, but just watch how the progression of better grip changes with age, if they get frustrated try and help them but don't force them and always tell them if that is how they cut then that is the best way to cut. Pincer grip can be practiced with the beads by gluing them onto paper, or if you want to incorporate math, write a number on a paper plate and then see if they can glue that many beads to the plate, I wouldn't go any higher than 20 though, it wouldn't be fair to the little kids. Cut the foam in half so you'll have more, or better yet cut it into small strips and have the kids cut them into small pieces, then save those pieces that each individual child cut and then have them glue them to the outsids of the cups. Then take these cups and place crayons in them for them to have as their own for art projects. If you have access to old magazines, get as many as you can, or see if the facility you are working with has any that are donated from companies representing child based magazines. catalogs work great, so do old newpapers. The day you do the project, get a basic idea of the theme and then have them cut out things in relation to that and glue to paper. Cut out the centers of the plates and place an equivalent size piece of wax paper over the hole. Let the kids glue cut up pieces of tissue paper to the wax paper. Have the kids string beads and then when you get a chance have the older kids help you tie them on or glue them on to the bottoms of the paper plates. Ta da, you've made sun/dream catchers. Have them kids crunch up balls of tin foil (good tactile project) and then smooth them out again, affix them to a larger piece of background paper, and then let them color it with the markers and see what kind of designs it makes over the creases (good discovery project in that too) Just letting them cut and color, or glue and string at free will is the best thing you could offer to these kids, project themed art activites do not offer any freedom of expression which is the primary focus of any early childhood teaching environment, letting them explore through their own senses. as long as you observe them, watch where their difficulties are coming through, and more importantly their strengths, no project can fail! Good luck!

Answer 2

you could make bracelets.  foam animals.

Answer 3

you could try making instruments. Also you could make animal masks using the paper bags and with the construction paper have them cut out shapes of animals faces and glue them on the paper bag then put it on their heads...with the popsicle sticks you can also have them cut out or draw  their favirote fruit or candy, cut it out and glue it onto the popsicle stick...ummm...maybe they could make small book and on every page write or draw something they want to accomplish in the future....alsoo you could use the beads and strings to do something really interesting...give them each a piece of string and make them a necklace and tell them that each bead symbolizes something...they get really into it because they all want to have the most beads...for example if they are polite you give them a green bead..if they are creative you give them a blue one...and so on...sorry i cant think of anything else but hope this helped!

Answer 4

Below are links for sites that you can use for suggestions.

Use the foam pieces to make picture frames, have the kids glue on beads or shells and do a crayon picture of the beach.

get egg cartons, use them to make little bugs, cut apart the cups, glue 2 together, and add string for feet and antenna.

cut out circles and shapes, use as parts of faces,glue on to the lunch bag, add string for hair, make in to hand puppets. add construction paper ears to make dogs, or add things to make zoo animals, like big ears and a trunk, etc.

take 2 pieces of wax paper, put scraps of tissue paper and string in patterns, YOU iron the paper together carefully to create art.

Paper plates, you cut out into mask shapes and cut the eye slits, let them decorate as masks, use the string to tie the masks on and have a zoo or a circus.

crayon on paper. crayon lots of colors on paper, then color black over it, then use the popsicle sticks to etch pictures in the black to let the color show through.

use the foam paper, cut little slits around the edges about an inch apart, and have the kids wind the string through the slits around the foam and weave tissue paper under the string to create art.

put on music so you can enjoy yourself while you do art!

Answer 5

with the paper bags you can make puppets. you could use color crayons to draw the face. you could do the same with the paper plates and popsicle sticks. glue a Popsicle on the paper plate. Have the kids draw faces on the paper plate. You could teach the older ones how to make paper airplanes out of the white copy paper? You could get the older ones to glue popsicle sticks together to form something. One easy thing is to glue popsicle sticks to make a picture frame. Have the kids color the frame with markers. The kids could make necklaces or bracelets with the beads? If there are holes in the seashells you could use those as beads. Not sure exactly what foam paper is? You could make a musical instrument by stapling to paper plates together (with the popsicle stick as the handle) put some beads inside of it, and see if it will make any noise). You could tissue paper inside of the cups. Get the green popsicle sticks as stems, make fowers out of the paper plates. make petals out of construction papers. Have the kids create a "scene" on one of the paper sources and let them use the different medias. The kids could get some tin foil and role it up to make different designs? They could make bookmarks with the construction paper and maybe the foam paper. If you could punch a hole in the top of it they could be string through it. you could get the older kids to draw with crawns really hard on the white piece of paper. After that have them color really hard with a black crayon. give them scissors

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