Spring Art for kids

 

Spring has sprung with lots of kid centered crafts that have to do with blossoms, eggs, caterpillars and butterflies.

I have a student who is OBSESSED with caterpillars and butterflies. when I saw this crawling caterpillar Tick Tock video, I knew I had to have his class make this paper toy. Instead of toilet paper, we wrapped crepe paper around a pencil and glued the edges together before scrunching it off  to make the  wrinkled caterpillars. Contruction paper. cut and folded, with a little loop glued to he end, was made before adding a rolled up piece of green paper (glued to keep it place) slid into the loop for a stem. One end of the caterpillar is glued to the loop and another to the end of the stem that is towards the middle of the leaf. By pulling the stem back and forward, it looks like the caterpillar is inching itself forward.

The following class period, we made more paper leaves with butterflies of tissue paper wings and pipe cleaner bodies. This is a science lesson, in talking about how caterpillars build a cacoon and turn into butterflies, but it was also a literacy lesson since we read, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" during class.

We also made 3D cherry blossom art, tissue paper flowers and died Easter Eggs, but anything painted in spring-time colors can be a spring project, including a relief sculpture, clay rattles, or playful prints with foam stamps or rollers.

It's fun to have bright and cheerful things to look at inside, after coming in from seeing bright and cheerful things happening in the natural world, during spring.