I must admit that I got this idea from one of Debbie Clements posts and just added more to it. It was in one of her posts that I saw that she gave the children a few black circles and had them finish the pictures with crayons or markers.
I thought this was brilliant and I started a project with our kids in summer camp. I have been giving them various items to start off with. Each item has to be pasted onto their paper. Then they need to use crayons to finish the picture.
If they would rather wait and paste the item at the end, that is also OK.
Each time I give them something to start off the picture we talk about what things are that shape.
I would say “what is a circle?” and they would tell me all the things they knew of to be circles. This way it gets theier minds thinking and there are a lot of ideas thrown out there and they don’t have to all copy each other.
So far we’ve done 3 of these type of pictures and I am showing you 3 examples from each activity.
The first was 10 black circles. (first picture included in this set)
The second was an orange triangle.
The third were two rectangular strips of construction paper.
I’m hoping to continue this…I could use some more ideas…Anyone have any ideas how to continue this?
I didn’t want to only use geometric shapes.
I did something like this with my kids a couple years ago, but instead of shapes, I drew and cut out various animal body parts. I had a few to choose from and my kids each chose one – my daughter chose a read paw and my son chose a long reptilian tale. After they pasted it on the paper, they had to create an imaginary animal around that body part. We had a lot of fun with it, too!
I looove that idea. I am definitely going to add that to this project. It also made me start thinking that maybe I can cut things out of magazines and stuff for them to finish. Thanks
No ideas to add but I just wanted to say I’m going to try what you did with the geometric shapes, it looks so much fun and reminds me how creative young ones can be. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Lucinda and don’t stop with the shapes I used. Add your own as well!!
What a great activity!! I love it! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
My pleasure!
This is a wonderful activity. We tried doing it with orange circles at my house.
I love this idea. What a great way to encourage creativity.
Thanks for linking up at Artsy Play Wednesday. Pinned to our group board.
That’s great, any variation works and there are endless variations to keep the kids busy
Hello Faigie, I like the idea of a given shape that the kids have to invent a scene. I am not sure about using black though because black is so powerful it take over. I think the rest of the colors work well. I enjoy your web site and got a few ideas for my camp art lessons. Thank you Anat
Thanks for your comment. I’m not so sure how much black takes over 😉 but I’m glad you’re finding my site useful