Wacky dioramas

I love giving kids unusual materials to work with.  They often become very careful and meticulous, and conscious of the special-ness of what they are being allowed to do.  For this project, I armed a few helpful adults with hot glue and lay out a table full of bunch of small fun stuff- recycled scraps, classroom leftovers, old toys that tend to go un-played-with, feathers, beads, fabric, magnetic poetry, buttons, etc.  Each child was allowed to take several turns through the supply table so that everyone had a chance to get some "good stuff."  These are some of the things kids made.  I think they're really interesting!

Under the sea art projects

This is a round-up of some of the projects we did in our Underwater Adventures week!

3-D Atlantis Maps

Another, with creative use of sticker salvage pieces

I find that little bits of materials like cool yarn, straws, and salt dough can really bring excitement and inspiration to a project.  My kids did really cool things with them!

What will these paper mache'd balloons become?

                         

Jellyfish hats!!!

Jellyfish hats for everyone!

In case it's not obvious, we cut the paper mache balls in half, cut eye holes, painted then, and then strung strips of fun things (crepe paper, bubble wrap, wacky yarn) around the edges as tentacles.  They were really fun to wear outside- the wind made the tentacles flutter!

Decoupage with tissue paper and watered-down glue

                         

A note about doing a lot of these projects in the summer- the moisture in clay, paper mache, and decoupage can get stuck in muggy weather and can sometimes even mold (especially if you make your own paper mache glue out of flour.)  Box fans overnight can prevent this, and make everything dry and take-home ready in a day or two!

Dinosaur tar pits

When I was working at the Ann Arbor Art Center, each week of Art Camp had a different theme.  Some of them really made me stretch my ideas, and often led us down really fun paths.  For example, dinosaur tar pits!

The idea started with making tar GAK and grew from there.  First, we made our own salt dough and made little circles of stones on pieces of cardboard we colored to look like the ground, like this:

by the end of camp I think my kids had the recipe for salt dough memorized!

Next, we made gak (recipe here) and added black paint to it to look like tar.  We put little paper cups (paint cups, though the bottom of a cut paper cup would work fine) in the middle of the circle of stones, as we were worried the stones wouldn't hold the gak in enough.  Then we added gak and as a surprise, when the kids weren't looking, we added dinosaurs to each tar pit.

Perspective shots helped :)

We also added little blobs of salt dough and bits of raffia to make bushes.

I love the bubbles in the tar!

After a few days, the tar dried to a nice sheen.  It stays pliable if put in a plastic baggie though.

Fun!