Now that Spring is here, you might be looking for art projects that celebrate the fresh air, birds, flowers and signs of the season! I love incorporating the beauty of nature in our art lessons. In this blog post, I will share 13+ Spring art projects for elementary kids that are perfect for the end of the year! These are all ideas that hopefully give you a starting point for developing your own Spring art curriculum. It’s a long blog post, are you ready?
Spring Art Projects for Kids: Birds!
1. Nest of Baby Chicks Spring Art Project
Create a sweet nest of baby chicks! To make the chicks, we traced a roll of masking tape to form the body, then added a smaller traced circle for the head. Students cut out their own beaks and drew on the eyes to give each chick its own personality.
After watching a quick demonstration, students drew their own nests and brought them to life by layering different types of brown textured paper for a realistic, cozy look.
2. Model Magic Bird in a Nest Sculpture
To make this bird sculpture, start by creating the nest. Open a brown paper lunch bag and roll the top edge downward toward the table. Use your fingers to gently shape it into a nest form.
Next, pour a lot of glue inside the nest and fill it with a variety of materials such as tissue paper, yarn, shredded paper, and other textured items.
To form the bird, shape the body, wings and head with Model Magic. You can use colored Model Magic or paint it later! While it’s still soft, poke feathers into the back of the bird. A little bit of liquid glue will help it stay in place. I’m thinking of making a video tutorial of this, let me know if you’d like to see the process.
Spring Flower Art Projects for Elementary Art
Flowers are a beautiful sign of spring! There are so many creative art projects you can explore using flowers as inspiration. I’ve created several of these as full print-and-go resources, complete with tutorials, helpful tips, and ready-to-use templates.
1. Spring Vase of Flowers Art Lesson
With this lesson, you can discuss flower still life paintings throughout art history. Students can draw their own vases by folding the paper in half, tracing one half of the vase and cutting it out to reveal a symmetrical vase.
Use Sharpie markers and watercolor paints to draw and layer your own flowers. Practice drawing types of lines or a variety of shapes on the vase to add in more art concepts.
If you’d like a full tutorial with steps written out, templates and tips, you can check out the Spring Vase of Flowers art lesson, which includes an art history slideshow and step-by-step presentation to use with your students.
2. Spring Flower Wreath – perfect for Mother’s Day or any special occasion!
Create a beautiful wreath of flowers that would be perfect as a gift for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, a special grandparent or other adult. Start by making the base: poke a hole in the center of a paper plate and carefully cut out the middle to form a ring.
Next, draw and paint a variety of flowers in different sizes and colors.
Once they are dry, cut them out and layer them with additional flowers made from solid-colored construction paper.
Stack and combine the flowers to create depth, then glue them onto the wreath. Finish by adding a special message at the bottom to make your wreath extra meaningful.
Want to save time? If you’re looking for a ready-to-use version with templates and guided steps, I’ve included everything in the full flower wreath resource in my TPT shop.
3. 3D Pop-Up Flower Garden – Spring Art Project for Kids
Create a colorful 3D flower garden! Start by folding a long piece of green construction paper into an accordion fold to form the base. Then, draw flowers with Sharpie and paint them using watercolor paints.
Once dry, cut out the flowers and layer them with additional flowers made from solid-colored construction paper. Stacking and layering the pieces adds depth and visual interest to the artwork.
Next, cut out leaves and stems from construction paper and glue them into place. To finish, add a thin strip of green construction paper along the bottom (cut into fringes) to create the look of grass.
If you’d like a ready-to-use version of this lesson with step-by-step directions, templates, and helpful teaching tips, you can find the full resource in my TPT shop.
If you scroll the carousel below, you can see all of my full Spring art resources, including two Earth Day art projects!
Expressive Flower Drawings Inspired by Takashi Murakami
Your students will love creating their own smiling flower faces inspired by Takashi Murakami’s iconic flower artworks. Simply print out examples of his artwork and see what your kids come up with!
If you need a ready-to-use slideshow about Takashi Murakami, here is a Google slides presentation I made during Covid for a distance learning art project!
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Close-Up Flowers
This is a lesson I have done with 2nd graders! I provide a variety of flower reference images, and students choose one to enlarge and fill an entire square sheet of paper. As they work, I demonstrate how to use variations of a color (such as red, dark orange, light orange, and yellow) to blend and create depth in their flowers.
To enhance the lesson, here are a couple of great read-alouds you can share with your class:
Through Georgia’s Eyes – Rachel Rodríguez (Amazon affiliate links)
My Name is Georgia – Jeanette Winter
Bouquet of Flowers inspired by Picasso
Are you familiar with this lovely, simple artwork by Picasso? I love it so much! This is a very easy project to do with your youngest students. Draw simple stems and flowers using Kwik Stix paint sticks. Trace and cut out hands from construction paper and glue so they are holding the flowers.
Spring Children’s Books to Go Along with Art Projects
If you know me, you know I love a good children’s book! In fact, I’ve written a blog post with 150+ of my favorite books for kids. I’ve gathered up some of my favorite Spring children’s books to share with you! These are beautiful books that are fun to read aloud to introduce a Spring art project. I also have rotating selections of books available for kids to look at during free time.
- Planting a Rainbow is a beautiful book that can go along with a rainbow flower art project or any flower lesson! I love Lois Ehlert’s books.
- Spring Sings for The Grouchy Ladybug is another book from Eric Carle that shows his painted paper collage style. This book is best for the youngest Pre-K & K ages.
- The Hidden Rainbow is a simple counting book showing the colors of the rainbow in the garden.
- The Flower Thief – If you like the Leaf Thief or the the Pumpkin Thief, here’s a Spring version in this series.
These are my two favorite Spring books. If you want to grab any of these books, these would be my top picks.
- Spring Parade is a book with such gorgeous illustrations!
- It’s Spring is also a beautiful book all about Spring. She also books for Winter and Fall. Hopefully, Summer is coming too!
Here are a few ideas using INSECTS!
- Ladybug Collage: Dip a fork in green paint and stamp grass across the paper. Cut a large black circle (body), a large red circle (wings) and a smaller black circle (head). Glue together, then add spots with black Sharpie and eyes with a white gel pen.
- Ladybug Drawing: Very simple, just show the students how to draw a ladybug on the board and have them draw their own ladybugs. I did this during zoom classes during Covid.
- Caterpillar Drawing: Teach about rainbow order. Demonstrate how to draw the caterpillar on the board and have the kids follow along, then color in rainbow colors. This was another distance learning lesson.
- Insect Collage: Offer a variety of colored construction paper. Students will try to make a creative symmetrical insect. Show a diagram or draw a diagram of the parts of the insect (head, abdomen, thorax, antennae). Have them cut out shapes for the insect parts. You can use construction paper crayons, metallic markers, or paint dotters to decorate the insect.
Firefly art projects are fun as we get closer to summer. I use neon oil pastels for coloring these in. I have a free tutorial download with handouts for this project.
Looking for a couple of insect books for these lessons?
- How to Build an Insect is a fun book about the parts of an insect and shows a kid building an insect – a great way to tie in a STEM project.
- On Beyond Bugs! is a book from the Dr. Seuss people – their nonfiction books are great!
Looking for even more spring art ideas?
I’ve shared several variations of Symmetrical Butterfly art projects in this blog post that offer plenty of creative inspiration.
This was another open-ended, successful Earth Day project from last year. If your students enjoy working with watercolors, this is a great project to try!
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