Category: School Art & Crafts

School Art & Crafts

Seed Pod Snake Project

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seed pod snakes

Nature Craft Project

During the Fall season, there are many natural materials to be found.  We encourage kids to get outside and make some of their own finds.  So many sticks, rocks and even pieces of bark can be made into fun art projects.  This particular craft project uses seed pods.  Ours are from a catalpa tree but many trees send out pods with seeds or you can substitute twigs for this fun and colorful snake project.

This is the perfect homeschool activity for spending time outdoors.  Give each child a small bag to collect their found treasures, concentrating on finding seed pods and twigs that resemble snakes.

What you need:

  • Seed pods or sticks
  • Paint
  • Brushes

Let the kids paint their snakes in a variety of colors, incorporating stripes, dots etc. as they wish.

School Art & Crafts

Fall Dragonfly Art Project

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Dragonfly Craft Project

Fall Nature Craft for Home or School

This is a perfect art or craft project for kids to do at home or at school.  And we love that you can incorporate an outdoor nature walk.  This is another simple project for kids that makes use of Fall seed pods and twigs.  The finished dragonflies can be used to display on a shelf, on the wall or make a mobile that the dragonflies hang from twigs.

The first step is to collect maple seed pods that are plentiful in many areas.  Certainly in the eastern part of the country, maple trees grow everywhere.  You will also want to look for thin twigs, especially those that have a little knob or sections protruding that look like antennae.  Twig size won’t matter but you do want to trim down to pieces about 5 inches long.

Twig crafts

Materials

  • Maple seed pods
  • Thin twigs
  • Clippers
  • Glue or Glue gun
  • Paint
  • Brushes

Nature craft project

Directions

  1.  Collect materials, then select which pieces you will use for your dragonflies.  Trim twigs to about 5 inches long.
  2.   You may use either a craft glue gun or tacky white glue, but the glue gun is easiest.  When working with a group of kids, however, the tacky glue is safer.
  3.  For ease of getting a good attachment with the glue, cut thin strips (about width of twigs) about 1/2″ long for each dragonfly.  Set strip on working area, apply a bead of glue, then set seed pods in place.  Add another bead of glue on top of this same section and set twig in place, pressing down a bit.  If using tacky glue, the dragonflies should not be moved until the glue is set.
  4. Paint the wings of the dragonflies any desired color.  Entire dragonfly can be painted if you like.

Dragonfly art project

School Art & Crafts

Fun Felt Project for Kids

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felt art project

Felt Art  Project

Kids love to be creative and this is a fun and easy project for kids at school or home.  One of our most important goals here at Ziggity Zoom is to let kids be their own creative director.  By this we mean, there are no “musts” when creating art.  Art comes from the artist’s own vision.  So if one makes a blue rooster or a pink elephant, that is fantastic in our eyes!  Many a teacher has dampened the soul and spirit of a young artist by critiquing a piece of art or a little poem.  Cows don’t have to be brown and the sky doesn’t have to be blue.  Encourage your little artists and it will inspire them in many things they do.

Felt is one of those fun and flexible materials that can be used for so many projects.  For this art project, we used only colored felt squares that are available at any craft store.  Buy lots and lots of bright colors for fun results.

Materials:

  • Felt
  • Scissors
  • White glue

felt craft project

Instructions:

  1. Start with one felt square to use as the background.
  2. Cut shapes from other colorful pieces for felt for a fun painting on felt.
  3. Make fun animals, buildings or just an abstract design.
  4. Glue chosen pieces of felt onto the background with white glue.  Set aside to dry completely.
  5. Most importantly … have fun!
School Art & Crafts

Clothespin Cardboard Animal Zoo

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cardboard animal project

Cardboard Animal Project

Teachers, home school teachers and parents, this is a fun and simple craft project from recycled cardboard that kids love.  You know we like simple to make projects for the kids and this fits the bill.  Kids can actually draw their own stylized or fantasy animal body and then add the clothespin legs.  These fun animals can be made in herds of one animal or a whole zoo of different animals.  Paint them in an array of colors with dots and stripes for extra fun.

Materials List:

  • Thin cardboard (recycled food boxes work well)
  • clothespins
  • scissors
  • paint/ brush

Instructions:

  1.  Find boxes to recycle, such as discarded cracker boxes or cereal boxes.  Break down boxes so that you have flat surfaces to work with.
  2. Draw an animal body shape with head and cut out.
  3. Use two clothespins for legs and attach securely.
  4. If painting, you can choose to just paint the cardboard or paint cardboard body and legs.
  5. Be creative and make animals fun colors or paint realistic colors.  Encourage creativity.
School Art & Crafts

Halloween Trick or Treat Figures

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Halloween craft project

Halloween Craft Project

This is a really fun and colorful Halloween project that the kids will have fun making.  It’s another of our recycled craft projects, which lets us all do our part for the environment while having a bit of fun.  It’s a simple project and the Halloween figures can be any theme a child wants, a ghost, a frog, a princess, a pirate and more.

Materials List:

  • Recyled paper towel rolls
  • Paper towels
  • Duct tape
  • Sticky back foam or felt
  • Paint/ brushes
  • Scissors

Instructions:

  1.  Cut paper towel rolls about 4 inches or 5 inches tall.  Squeeze one of the end openings to form the neck.
  2.  Cut, or tear, a piece of paper towel about 3″ x 3″ or slightly larger.  Set aside, then tear off a smaller piece of paper towel and roll into a ball. Place the ball inside of the square, cover to form head and squeeze ends together to form a neck.
  3. Insert head/neck into the neck of the paper towel roll.  Tape around entire neck area.
  4. Paint head and body and let dry.
  5. Make ears and accessories with foam or felt, then attach.
  6. Paint eyes and let dry.
School Art & Crafts

Monster Box Recycled Craft Project

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Halloween Craft Project

Recycled Craft Activity

This is a fun craft project that kids can do at home or in school and it’s perfect for a home school art activity.  Although it works well for any time of the year, it is a great Halloween craft project.

Other than paint, all the other needed materials used in the project are recycled.

Materials Needed:

  • Recycled boxes, such as cracker box, tissue box, etc.
  • Recycled egg cartons
  • Card stock or construction paper
  • Scissors
  • Paint/brush
  • Glue

Instructions:

  1. Choose a box, then cut out a large opening for a big mouth.
  2. Paint box desired color and let dry thoroughly.
  3. Using a pencil, lightly draw the approximate size and shape of mouth opening onto the card stock.  Now draw jagged teeth and a line that is about 1/2″ wider than the mouth opening, so this can be glued to the box.
  4. Cut through the center of your mouth opening so that you have an upper and lower set of teeth showing.  Erase the first line of mouth opening so that you don’t accidentally cut on this line.  Now cut out the two parts, for upper and lower sets of teeth.
  5. Glue teeth onto the inside of the box at the mouth opening.
  6. For the eyes, cut apart an egg carton, leaving two sections together for eyes.
  7. Paint eyes any desired color and let dry.
  8. Glue eyes in place, letting dry thoroughly.
Fun Worksheets / School Art & Crafts

Trace Color and Cut Paper Mask Activity

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Free printable masks

Printable Mask Project

Kids love to make and wear masks and this is a great activity for them to customize their own mask.  Use these fun masks for any Superhero project or any costume.  Each mask can be made to match any theme for Halloween or just for play.

Suitable for most any age, this project encourages fine motor control through use of crayons and scissors.  Masks can be colored with crayons, colored pencils or markers.  Encourage the kids to use their imaginations to add fun design details.

Let younger children trace the dotted lines of their mask first and then color as they wish.

Just print the mask page on heavy paper, then supply crayons and markers, scissors and have elastic on hand to fit each child.

Printable Masks