Get in Shape Doing Art
There’s no need to feel bent out of shape about doing art with your child; here are some fun shape activities for kids that you can easily do at home.
Shapes are a basic element of art. The two easiest shapes for preschool kids are circles and squares, then triangles and rectangles. Children’s toys have many, many circles. When drawing or painting it’s hard to get a circle really round but there are some great tools for circle art. Paint dabbers come with a built-in circle and kids can stamp away on a paper making circles of all different colors. Kids can dip paper tubes and rolls in paint and add circles on top of circles.
Parents and caregivers can color or paint a small circle in the middle of the page and let kids go around the little circle in another color. Can you tell which of these was done by a young child and which one was done by the famous artist Vassily Kandinsky?
Squares and rectangles are easier for kids to draw than triangles. Robots have a lot of squares and kids can use their imaginations to draw them. Monsters can be any shape but this one drawn with dry-erase markers on a small white board is sort of a rectangle shape. The ghost has some zig-zag lines that look like little triangles.
Houses are often drawn or painted with a combination of shapes, square windows, rectangle doors, and triangle roofs. Outer Space has rockets with rectangles and triangles, and many circle planets. These are just a few ideas for shape activities to draw and paint.
Besides making shapes on paper, kids can use Lego for shape art. This Lego creature is mostly rectangles and sticky notes make perfect squares. This wall art was a combination but of ages of the artists, rather than the shapes.
Mosaics are a stunning combination of shapes and kids can make these with wooden or plastic shape blocks. Adults make mosaics, too.
Shapes help children with the fundamental thinking skill of same and different. By comparing and sorting shapes, kids can build the strategy of categorizing. Noticing shapes is a way to organize visual information. Learning happens best when mixed with fun. What art fun can you and your child have with shape activities for kids?