Drip! Drip! Drip! April showers are around the corner. An afternoon indoors can be a claustrophobic prospect – especially if your kids have nothing to do! Luckily for you, FLY has a host of tried and true projects that the junior artists in our Mobile Creativity Labs have loved. Try these easy, age-appropriate projects and let us know what you think!
Make a Cardboard Village
You know that snack in your pantry in the waaay back that has been there for months? Free up some space and use that box for art! This project may require a little more hands-on help from you, but the results are seriously awesome. With nothing but tape and scissors that bit of cardboard can become a tiny house.
Tape your walls together, cut some flaps for doors and windows, throw on a roof and you’ve got a start to your miniature village. Decorating your buildings can be just as fun as building them. Magazine clippings, paint, and marker can all make your mini-house feel more like a mini-home.
Some amazing work from our young architects can be seen in the gallery!
Make a Miniature Book!
In our Lab, junior artists turned an ordinary sheet of paper into a pocket-sized, eight-page comic book. How, You ask incredulously? By using the lost art of zine making of course. In case you’ve forgotten, you can check out this link for a guide on how to fold a zine.
This project can be taken in a lot of different ways: help craft the story with your child or let them surprise you with what they come up with, give them prompts or let their creativity run wild! This project makes literacy and writing fun and it takes normal drawing and coloring to the next level.
Not only is making a bite-size book fun, but it exercises tons of really valuable skills! It’s got it all: honing fine motor skills, exploring the process of storytelling, and executive functioning. The most important part, though, is that our artists had a fantastic time making them! One of their favorite parts was photocopying their stories to share with friends. Check out our gallery to see some of our junior artists’ creations.
Make a Treasure Map of your Home
Who doesn’t like treasure maps? For kids, making one of their own home can be a great experience. Not only does this project bring the excitement of exploration right into your home, it helps your child to think about a familiar space in completely new way!
Being a cartographer is tricky – graph paper can make things a lot easier. To help with the change in perspective, your child can imagine that they’re laying on their back on the ceiling looking down at the room. Once your home is mapped out, beautiful colors can be added, rooms can be given new names, and you can think about where treasure could be hidden!
If you liked these ideas, check out our ‘camps’ and ‘workshops’ tabs – we have lots of really exciting upcoming events!