9 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.
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.)
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 have also used the underside of the Wobbel as a felt board. (And a train track. And a slide. And a bridge. Limitless possibilities.)
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.
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!
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.
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.
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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