Art Project Ideas for Your Preschool-Age Child

Need some ideas for art projects for your preschool age child? Here are some art projects which incorporate both learning and fun! (These ideas are also good for preschool teachers looking for ideas for art projects for their class!)

Pipe Cleaner Shapes: Take pipe cleaners and make shapes out of them. Have your child copy the shape you just made. After you two make lots of shapes, you can link them together. You can also make squiggles, zigzags, and more complicated shapes and see if your child can copy you. This will help her motor skills as well as her ability to watch and copy something you do.

Handprint Art: For this project you'll need some finger paint or other washable paint, a piece of paper, and a paintbrush. Have your child put his handprint on a piece of paper. Then, let his use his imagination to turn that handprint into something using the finger paint and his fingers or the paintbrush. He could add a trunk and paint some apples to turn it into a tree, or add three more "fingers" to turn it into an octopus. This is a great imagination-building exercise.

Clay shapes: You'll need some modeling clay in various colors and a variety of shaped molds. Ask your child to make a shape and color, for example, a red circle or yellow star. This will help your child with following two step directions. Also, let your child ask you to make a few color/ shape combinations.

Texture Trace: You'll need a few pieces of paper and a pencil or crayon. Show your child how she can put the paper over something and rub the pencil or crayon over the paper to get the texture of the object to how up on the paper. Some ideas for objects to trace over are books with textured covers, tree trunks, leaves, and toys.

Name Art: Before you start working together, get a piece of paper and write your child's name in big block letters. Now let him think of things that begin with each letter of his name. Then tell him to draw those things in each letter. For an added challenge, have him fill in the background of each letter with a color that begins with that letter (make sure that you have crayons that begin with each letter in your child's name.)