Junk Art – Art from discarded things around the house (any age or grade)
gather from 4-6 discarded things around the home (such as: toilet tube, computer printer cartridges, pieces of cotton, bottle caps, pen tops, pieces of sponge, string etc.) and perhaps a pen or sharpie marker to draw on items
Set a timer for 15 minutes
Ready, Set, Go……make a person or animal art out of these scraps. The example below was assembled on a kitchen counter top, thus can be taken apart and become part of something else. If permanence is desired, glue on to paper, piece of wood, plastic or any surface available. Can you guess where these discarded pieces came from?
Mutual Portraits – two people in the house (child and adult, or two children), sit facing each other with paper and pencil leaning on books, and try to draw each other’s portrait at the same time. Try to face each other and not bend your face down, but just look down with your eyes only. It will make you laugh trying, and you may not be able to do it. Then interview each other: name, age, interests, opinions, etc. ask lots of serious and fun questions. (any age or grade)
Where am I? game – (grade 2 through M.S.)Search around your home for any tiny detail on an object. Make a drawing of it privately, and have one or more others in the household try to guess what object the detail belongs to. Variation: use a smart phone and snap a photo of the detail as below.
Virtual Museum -(all grades) tours are available online from almost any museum
A Room With a View – (grade 2- 3 and up) Draw the view from any window in your home. What do you see out there? Birds, trees, other homes, water, cars, people?
Spring Flowers – (grades K-3) Find out what flowers pop up first in springtime. If possible take a walk outside around your neighborhood and find out first hand which flowers come up first. (hint, little purple flower comes up in bunches, starts with a “C,” also bright yellow flowers). Make a drawing of the flower you see first, in color if you have crayons or markers.
Shape Search – (grades K-3) Search your home for shapes: circle, square, triangle etc. Draw or take pics of the variety of items for each shape: crackers, food, clocks, bottle tops, tissue boxes, radio, TV, picture frame, table, etc.
Count and Draw – (K) Practice counting how many steps will it take to get from where you are standing, to your kitchen? your TV? your bed? etc. How many steps will you take to climb up stairs? How many chews will it take to eat something? Walk 10 steps, or pick another number, how far do you get? Draw anything you see when you get there.
Color Hunt – (K-4) Go looking for any examples of red that you can find in your home. (furniture, clothing, shoes, magazine pages, food, etc.), gather them together where possible. compare and notice the amazing variety of this one color. Do this with each and every color: yellow, blue, purple, green etc. (variation take pics with smart phone)
The Beginning and the End – (grades 6-8) Re-visit a book or story you’ve already read. Change the story. Give it a different beginning or end, or both, and make an illustrations of your new idea.
Font That Name – (grades 4-8) Look at all the different interesting FONTS available on a computer. Design your name using an existing or made-up clever new font of your own. If computer is not available, look in newspapers and or magazines to find different varieties of print fonts available being used today.
Picture That! – (grades 6-8) Play this Word/Image game with another person either in your house, or on computer, or over the phone. Pick a word from this list of weird english words you won’t believe exist.Illustrate this word with a drawing of what you think it is, then look it up in the dictionary. Don’t cheat! Words:kerfuffle, durian, cherimoya, rambutan, hullaballoo, mangosteen, jujube, ackee, whippersnapper, gobbledygook, gibberish, snood, aglet, splat, chad, guimpe, spile
