Art Projects that Go Along with Children’s Books

What are some art projects that go along with children’s books?

Here are 10 art projects that go along with children’s books!  I love to include children’s books in my art lessons.  It’s a great “hook” to capture their interest and also it provides a way for students to see beautiful illustrations and learn about concepts, cultures and other people.  

In this post, I share a few of my favorite children’s books that go along with art projects.  Amazon Affiliate links have been used at no extra cost to you.  The money earned goes towards maintaining this free website (and for buying art supplies!)

Collage of ten children's book covers with the heading "Art Projects that go with Children's Books" on a gradient background.

1. Henna Hands

An aerial view of waves crashing against a shore.
Two hand outlines filled with colorful, intricate patterns are drawn on a black background decorated with swirls, stars, and abstract shapes in various bright colors.

Henna Hands: Taking inspiration from Mehndi, students create their own decorative hands picture. After drawing on white paper, they cut these out and glue to a piece of Scratch art paper, where they add more designs!  Unfortunately I cannot find the holographic glitter Scratch art sheets anymore, but you can use rainbow Scratch art sheets instead.

2. Snowglobe Art Project

A hand-drawn winter snow globe scene reminiscent of children's books features a snowman, Christmas tree, cat, and mouse under a starry sky and crescent moon. Bordered by colored pencils with a "Happy Holidays!" message, it's perfect for festive art projects.

Snowglobes: Using a circle tracer, students make their own snowglobe, with festive winter imagery inside.  For a printable snowglobe template, go here for additional resources.

The charming book cover of "The Snow Globe Family" by Jane O'Connor, illustrated by S.D. Schindler, beautifully captures a whimsical winter scene in a snow globe with a family enjoying the snow amidst trees—a delightful addition to any children's book collection.

3. It’s OK to Be Different

It’s Okay to Be Different: Kids create unique faces on cardboard circles using India Ink daubers and oil pastels. 

4. Elmer the Elephant

Cover of the children's book "Elmer" by David McKee, featuring a colorful patchwork elephant on a similarly patterned background, perfect inspiration for art projects.

Read the book Elmer, about an elephant who is different than the other elephants.  We made our own colorful patchwork elephants!  We used this patchwork template to make our elephants.  You can get the free high resolution PDF here.

A colorful, patchwork paper elephant from a children's book is displayed against a light green background, next to a large purple shape resembling a tree—perfect inspiration for art projects.
A rectangular grid with rounded corners, labeled "Elmer the Elephant" in the top left corner.

5. What Lives In Your Heart- Heart Art Projects

These fun heart drawings include all kinds of things that the student loves!  Anything they love can go in their heart:  pizza, mom, hamsters, fish, flowers, friends, sports- the sky is the limit.  If you’d like the heart template, you can find it here.  I like to read the book The Shape of My Heart to go along with this project.

6. Owl Art Projects

The book Abracadabra! the Magic of Trying, is a wonderful SEL book about giving things your best try and not giving up.  We draw step-by-step owls and color with crayons.  Then, we use watercolor paints for backgrounds.  We also make these clay owls as an introduction to slabs and texture.

7. Monster Art Project

Child's drawing of a smiling monster with large eyes, blue nose, and purple horns on a pink face. The background is purple.

We love this book: Monsters Love School, which is great for the beginning of the year.  He also has one called Monsters Love Colors. Another great book is The Color Monster, an SEL book about feelings.  We used the drawing guides and description printables from the Expressive Monkey to make our texture rubbing monsters.  You simply draw your monster, outline in Sharpie and then make texture.  Place a textured rubbing plate under your paper and then rub on top with crayons!

Cover of "The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings" by Anna Llenas, featuring a colorful monster and a black-and-white character holding hands.
Cover of the book "Monsters Love School" by Mike Austin, featuring colorful monsters and playful lettering on a lined background.

8. Frogs in a Pond with Monet

Here are those fun cardboard circles again!  We learned about Claude Monet and his lily pad paintings. We read this book called Philippe in Monet’s Garden.  To make this project, we painted with watercolor paints on the circles.  Then, cut out the construction paper lily pads and add colored tissue paper to the lily pads.  Some years I have just done this on regular paper.  I also did this when we had distance learning and the kids drew their frogs at home using this simple slideshow presentation.

Cover of "Philippe in Monet's Garden" features a green frog surrounded by colorful flowers and butterflies.
A colorful circular artwork featuring a hand-drawn fish on a watercolor blue background, with paper lily pads and tissue paper flowers.

9. Peace Art

Cover of "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr, featuring a globe surrounded by diverse, colorful cartoon faces on a blue background.

There’s a lot of art you can do related to the theme of Peace.  The Peace Book is a great book to start an art project about peace.  Everything Todd Parr has done is wonderful, I’m a big fan.  In this peace blog post, I share a template you can use to start your peace art.  You could make posters, a peace quilt or peace styrofoam prints.

10. Starry Night with Vincent Van Gogh

Children's book cover titled "Vincent: Starry Starry Night" shows a boy sitting among flowers, holding a book.

I shared about this book, called Vincent: Starry Starry Night in a previous blog post, but it is just so good!  I received a review copy and shared many of the beautiful illustrations in the book.  There are many ways to do a Starry Night inspired picture.  I like to paint or color a swirly sky, add star stickers and then collage a city scene on top.

What books do you like using in your classroom? Share in the comments!

Here are some other posts about Books in the Art Classroom you may enjoy:

I have also made a HUGE list of 150 + Children’s Books that are perfect for ART CLASS!

A collection of colorful children's art books is spread out, with a banner reading "150+ Books for Art Class!" above them.

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