9 Action Art Ideas for Kids

9 Action Art Ideas for Kids

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Moving and making. Making and moving.
It’s like the ultimate kid combo of creativity.
We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm.
But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed.
Here are 9 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Paint skating

Possibly one of our favourite action art activities of all time.
Wrap bubble wrap around your little artist’s feet and secure with duct tape.
You’ll need a large sheet of paper. Squirt paint on the paper and let your Mini Maker skate across the paper.
WARNING: this can get slippery. We had a bench running alongside the paper so that Miss 4 could hang on as she needed.
Oh and you probably want to do this one outside, near a hose.
Unless you like living dangerously (by which I mean, you like paint all over your house.)

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Wobbel Art

The very cool people at Oskar’s Wooden Ark gave us a Wobbel board.
Basically changing our lives forevermore.
But what do you do with a Wobbel board?
You hand it over to your child and you watch the magic unfold.
It is one seriously rad, open-ended toy. (“Toy” seems to be the wrong word. It’s so much more than a toy.)

In this activity we taped a big sheet of paper to the wall.
We placed the Wobbel board in front of the paper, and placed some crayons on a nearby stool.
And then we waited to see what would happen.
Miss 5 took to the invitation with gusto.

 

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We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

We have also used the underside of the Wobbel as a felt board. (And a train track. And a slide. And a bridge. Limitless possibilities.)

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Toy Car Painting

Action Art can seem a bit daunting for the uninitiated.
If you’d like to dip your toes into the Action Art pond, start small.
This project is a perfect start.

Place some paper in a box. Squirt some drops of paint onto the paper.
Let your little artist/ rev head “drive” their cars through the paint.
The mess is relatively contained with this one.

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Swinging Paint

If the toy car painting is nice and contained, then this one is NOT. It’s fast and furious and oh so fun.
Make sure a large area is covered with a drop sheet. (Definitely one for outdoors!)
Pierce holes into several plastic cups.
String these up somewhere, somehow. We used our clothes horse.
Line a box with paper and place it under your plastic cups.
Fast-flowing acrylics are the best paint choice here. You can use liquid watercolours or water down some acrylics.
Just be aware that it is possible to go through A LOT of paint QUICKLY with this activity.

Once everything is in place, pour paint into the cups and swing them back and forth.
A pendulum masterpiece!

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Painting with Kitchen Utensils

I loved this activity because it was fun to watch the kids move between a horizontal and vertical workspace.
We taped a drop sheet to the fence. Then we taped paper in place and squirted paint onto a tray.
We then provided our little artist with different kitchen utensils and watched the masterpiece unfold.

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Fly Swatter Art

This one came to me in the middle of a hot Australian summer. We were at the supermarket when my children spotted some fly swatters.
“We can make art with those!” was my initial thought.

We taped a long sheet of paper to the fence. I drew little flies on the paper in black crayon.
The kids dipped their fly swatters in tubs of liquid watercolours and swatted the “flies.”
This one was hilatious fun.

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Coloured Powder

Have you ever seen a Holi celebration? Where coloured powder is thrown around in the ultimate celebration of colour.
We made our own coloured powder. In a tray, combine cornflour, water and food colouring of your choice.
Leave the tray out in the sun for a few days. The water will evaporate and you will be left with sheets of coloured cornflour.
You then grind this down into a powder.
We left tubs of the powder around the yard and went wild throwing it into the air.
We had a sheet of paper on the grass so that as the powder fell to the ground, it landed on the paper. We then turned the hose on and sprayed the paper and powder. We were not left with a beautiful masterpiece. The activity turned into sensory, imaginative play as the kids used the wet powder to “bake cakes.”
Still a win in our books.

 

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Musical Canvas

Our friends Cara and Kinley over at Raising Kinley are also MAJOR action art fans.
I adore the way they teamed music and movement to create this masterpiece.
Read more about it here.

 

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Messy Sensory Shower Curtain Art

This shower curtain art is probably the most epic action art project I’ve ever seen.
It’s on our Summer To-Do list!
Head over to Tinkerlab where Cara shares her full recipe for this magical paint.

If you try any of our action art ideas for kids, be sure to tag us on social media.
We’d love to see what you create!

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We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

We love getting creative here as a chance to connect and calm the farm. But, sometimes, our making and creating is big. Loud. And action-packed. Here are 10 of our favourite action art ideas for kids.

Eric Carle Art for Kids

Eric Carle Art for Kids

Kids art project with love hearts

If I asked you to name some of the world’s greatest picture book creators, who would you name?
This simple Eric Carle art project for kids introduces mini makers to the glorious collage technique of one of the world’s greatest picture book creators.
It involves painting tissue paper to create some seriously eye-popping results.
One of my most popular posts in the history of this blog, involved making a wall hanging using this Eric Carle-inspired process.
It felt about time to whip this project out again to create something new.
Gotta love a fun process that leads to glorious products, right?
You can then turn your painted tissue paper into cards, garlands, wall hangings, illustrations…. if you can imagine it, you can create it.

This post contains affiliate links.
Thanks for your support.


You will need:

Tissue paper
Acrylic paints
A variety of paintbrushes
Offcuts from cardboard boxes
Cardboard
PVA glue
Straws
Yarn

Kids can create homemade cards and garlands and whatever their imagination fancies with this simple Eric Carle art project that introduces mini makers to the glorious collage technique of one of the world's greatest picture book creators. #kidsart #ericcarle #kidsactivities #homemadecards #kidscraft

How to:

You can read about painting tissue paper from Eric Carle himself here.

Or check it out in our video!

Here are some tips from what we learned from the experience.
You will need some thick cardboard to lay under your tissue paper to prevent the paint bleeding through to your work surface.
I pulled apart an old nappy box.

As you apply paint to the tissue paper, lift up your sheet of tissue paper frequently.
This will stop the paper from sticking to the cardboard.

Eric Carle Tissue Paper Stars

Eric Carle applies his paint in layers.
For example, he works on a red layer and then lets that sheet dry.
Then once dried, he applies another layer of paint.

We went for a process that explored different paintbrushes and strokes.
So we applied all our layers at once, doing different lines and dots.
(You might want to make sure the colours on offer are complementary, in this case.)
We then finished by using IKEA Mala paints, in their excellent squeezy bottles, and squeezed haphazard lines onto the paper.

Once your tissue paper has dried, tear it up into little pieces.
You now have an instant collage box of goodness!

We traced hearts onto cardboard offcuts and cut these out.
Using craft glue, we then covered our cardboard hearts with painted tissue paper.
Trim away any excess overhanging the edges.

Once dried, you can glue your hearts to some thin cardboard to create a homemade card.
Or you could create a garland.
Here’s an excellent garland-making tip that I learned from my friend Shelly at Creating Creatives.
Cut up a straw into small intervals.
Use a hot glue gun to secure these bits of straw to the back of your hearts.
Once the glue has dried, you have an easy way to string yarn through and a super simple way to make a garland!

Want more Eric Carle art and craft projects?

This paper plate firefly craft is the perfect accompaniment to a reading of Eric Carle's The Very Lonely Firefly. #kidscrafts #ericcarle #fireflycraft

Firefly Craft

Eric Carle Tissue Paper Stars

Paper Stars Inspired by Eric Carle’s “Draw Me A Star”

Arts and Crafts Inspired by Eric Carle

Arts and Crafts Inspired by Eric Carle

Pin for later:

Kids can create homemade cards and garlands and whatever their imagination fancies with this simple Eric Carle art project that introduces mini makers to the glorious collage technique of one of the world's greatest picture book creators. #kidsart #ericcarle #kidsactivities #homemadecards #kidscraft

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If you are Australia based, you may prefer Booktopia.
(Also affiliate links.)

Thanks for your support. Happy reading!