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.
This colorful garden sculpture of a person made from painted flower pots is sitting on a vibrant, multicolored bench.

woah!

While searching the internet for some clay how-to’s I found this picture.  Woah! That’s crazy! It’s on About.com

Read More...woah!
Craft a turkey using a pinecone, colorful feathers, and a purple paper head with a googly eye. This fun project is great for kids' crafts and adds a festive touch to any holiday decor.

Pinecone Crafts

At our church garage sale I picked up a large bag of pine cones for $2.  I suppose I could have found pine cones on the ground, but hey, they were all in a bag right in front…

Read More...Pinecone Crafts

Creativity Exercise

I’m going to have some of my students do a creativity exercise on the first day of school to get their juices flowing.  Creativity TestDirections:  Use your imagination to invent something that we could add to the school. …

Read More...Creativity Exercise
Two small handmade clay figures of zebras, one climbing a block with letters and numbers, and the other on the ground near a striped barrier.

Clay Figures

So, you may remember that I made a couple clay figures as demos for a kids’ clay class that I taught.  I painted the girl and put her in a chair that I had.  This is a chair…

Read More...Clay Figures
Close-up of colorful wire-wrapped stones, ideal for jewelry making, on a yellow background.

Making Pendants

Making jewelry is one of the hobbies I enjoy.  When people ask me what kind of art I do on my own, I have a hard time saying what I do… I love photography, jewelry making, collages, drawing,…

Read More...Making Pendants
Cool drawing of a bird with simple lines and wispy feathers against a white background.

Really Cool Drawing Site

While reading Mini Matisse’s Blog I learned about this really cool online drawing program that allows you to draw with different types of marks:  fur, webbed, squares, ribbon, sketchy and others.  I’m in love with how it looks! …

Read More...Really Cool Drawing Site

Cute Artsy Baby Blog

This blog shows pictures of a baby on top of towels arranged in an artful scene.  They are so adorable!! These pictures are gorgeous, but they make me mad for two reasons. 1.  My baby NEVER slept peacefully…

Read More...Cute Artsy Baby Blog