Kids' Art Activities :: 11 Parenting Bloggers Share Their Favorites

Every family has their favorites when it comes to kids' art activities, but most of us (surely I'm not the only one?) are always on the look out for new fun art activities.

With that in mind, I asked 11 great parenting bloggers to share their favorite art activities with us. Their answers ranged from milk paint and suminagashi to a rainy day doodle game and duct tape flowers. Note: Make sure to click through on the links below for their blog posts on the art activities mentioned and any further description or tutorial.

I hope you find some new ideas here to try with your families. And who knows? Maybe they'll become a favorite in your household, too!

1. Play at Home Mom

"We love making window art because it is open-ended and fun to do whether you are 2 or 92. We love how one simple frame can become so many different things in the eyes of a child. Pouring/dumping glue and peeling it off your fingers is fun, too."

 

2. Valerie Deneen, Inner Child Fun

"Suminagashi. Hands down. It is my daughter's most requested art project EVER. We love that each print is totally unique, and that there's really no wrong way to do it. She could make marbled prints all day long, if I let her. LOL"

 

3. Alissa Marquess, Creative with Kids

"We like to play Pass the Drawings. It's something that different ages can enjoy together and sometimes we come up with fun themes like 'robots' or 'flowers.' We love seeing how the drawings evolve with each person's input."

 

4. Mariah Bruehl, Playful Learning

"Every spring and summer it has become a treasured tradition to collect and press leaves and flowers. We keep them handy in our art area and enjoy using them to make handmade cards and bookmarks. We give them out as gifts and always save a few to have around the house. Every time we reach for a bookmark it brings back fun crafty memories."

 

5. Amanda Morgan, Not Just Cute

"We like to do spin art with the record player. It's exciting movement art, but because we use markers it's quick and easy to get out and put away and low mess!"

 

6. MaryLea Harris, Pink and Green Mama

"A favorite activity of ours is watercolor resist with colored glue. It is kid friendly, easy to do, and we always have the supplies around our art room to do it. This technique adds another level of sophistication to their paintings! We love playing with black glue (just add black acrylic paint to some school glue) because it gives a stained glass window effect to our watercolor paintings. It's almost like making a puffy coloring book page—the raised (dry) black glue edges act as a barrier/outline between the bold watercolor colors."

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7. Melissa Taylor, Imagination Soup

"Art journaling fills my need to express myself creatively. My kids love to art journal because they get to use lots of techniques, and materials. Art journaling is our favorite art activity to do together - we all get a lot out of it, we can be together, and it's lots of creative fun. (Plus, I count it as some writing, too!)"

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8. Rachelle Doorley, TinkerLab

"Like many kids, my 4-year old enjoys the challenge of making her own potions, recipes, and paints. A recent favorite paint recipe uses sweetened condensed milk as the base, and my kids enjoyed taste-testing their concoction (without going overboard...I was surprised), while proudly creating an art material with their own hands."

 

9. Maggy Woodley, Red Ted Art

"We recently started an Alphabet Handprint series, in order to get messy, as well as support my son’s activities at his nursery. I didn’t anticipate quite how much we would all enjoy it! My daughter simply loves getting messy. My son loves choosing a new animal each week and figuring out how we will do it. And I love how much the kids are enjoying the process, as well as the challenge of “what next”. We have all the letters displayed both in our family room and my son’s bedroom!"

 

10. Marie LeBaron, Make and Takes

"We love to play with pipe cleaners. There are so many fun things you can make and create with these fuzzy wire sticks. You can twirl them into wands, make silly shape glasses to wear, and string beads to make a sweet caterpillar."

 

11. Cindy Hopper, Skip to My Lou

"My daughter and I love to craft with things on hand—a spontaneous endeavor where we can create together! From making duct tape flowers to pretty up our shoes or designing a cover for a pocket calendar, we enjoy best those activities that we create something we can use to bring a little fun and artistic flair to our everyday world!"

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How about you? What's your family's current favorite art activity? While I asked these parenting bloggers to keep it to one favorite for this round-up, you and I both know that most of us have more than one. So feel free to share a few if you like!

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I look forward to hearing everyone's favorites! (Ours are currently spin painting and Simon Says, draw).