25 Awesome Art Books for Kids
Hello! If you are visiting this page NOW, be sure to check out my Amazon Affiliate List where I have a running list of ALL my favorite art books for my elementary art classroom. I continually update this…
Art Projects for Kids + Tips for the Teacher!
Art Projects for Kids + Tips for the Teacher!
Elementary Art Projects & Creative Lessons for Kids
Welcome to Art is Basic, a blog full of elementary art lessons, easy art projects, and teaching ideas for K-5 classrooms. Browse hundreds of engaging activities designed to inspire young artists.
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Triangle Collage on Canvas for School Auction
Every year, my 5th/6th grade class carves rubber stamps with symbols they have designed. This year, we stamped extra prints on tissue paper with acrylic paint to make collaborative artworks. To stamp, simply use a foam brush to…
Group Eagle Bulletin Board with Patterned Feathers
Many of my students contributed feathers to this giant eagle bulletin board. Our school is Eagle School and I wanted to do a group artwork where many kids could participate in designing a piece of the picture. I…
Beautiful Oops Painting Project
Did you Celebrate Oops!? My kindergarten and first graders started this open-ended project by reading the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. We were inspired by the page in the book that said, “A smudge and a smear…
Monoprint Hearts on Gelli Plates with 1st Graders
Hello friends! Have you used Gelli Printing Plates before? I was introduced to this a couple of years ago because I received a couple samples to try out for my blog. They are a super fun way to…
Tinfoil Hearts with Kindergarten
The Kindergartners made these lovely mixed media heart pictures. They started by stamping the background paper with gadgets, such as old thread spools, bottle caps, heart sponges, cookie cutters and more. During the second class period, they traced…
Yarn Wrapped Hearts (2nd Grade)
Often I get so wrapped up in the curriculum, I don’t take time to do “extra” projects which are just for fun for holidays. Kids love celebrating holidays and often ask to do themed projects. I am fine…
A Page of Hearts (Valentine’s Pictures)
Valentine’s Day is coming! Are you looking for a fun heart project idea to try with your kids? This challenge for my 3rd graders was to design 9 different hearts. I used this project with a substitute teacher…
Fun Puns about Art and Artists
Are you looking to add some humor to your class? We had a “Funday Punday Monday” at our school where kids and teachers brought in puns to share. I rounded up some fun art-related puns you could use…
Pop Art Portraits: 2nd Grade
Hi there! I have a bunch of old projects I want to post about and I will just post them with short descriptions. This lesson is a popular one for teaching about Pop Art and Andy Warhol. We…
Concentric Valentine’s Day Hearts
Valentine’s Day is coming! I love heart-related art projects. These concentric hearts were made by my second graders last year. We talked about the art concepts of concentric shapes and patterns. For more Valentine’s Day projects, look at…
Learning about Lines
Lines are an excellent starting point for lessons with Kindergarteners. To begin this line unit, we read the book Lines That Wiggle (Amazon Affiliate link used) The students used colored tape to make straight lines across their paper. …
Paper Mache Maracas with Kindergarteners
Aren’t we always looking for ways to relate to other subjects? This project is perfect to connect with your music program at school. Materials you will need: plastic Easter eggs (one per child) plastic spoons (2 per child)…
Printmaking with Christmas Ornaments?? What!?
Another printmaking experiment for you! I bought some felt ornaments and sparkly snowflake decorations from Target on clearance. Valentine’s Day is also a good time to get decorations. Here is how I created the background shown below. Snowflake: …
Printing with Paperclips
I checked out the book Print & Stamp Lab from the library and there was a cool idea in there with printing with paper clips (among many other found objects.) When I was at Target, I found these…