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Check out the work of Richard Shilling and get inspired. Head outside and make your own environmental art. Bonus: Photograph it and share the photo!

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Check out Chrome Music Lab's Kandinsky lab. It's inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, an artist who compared painting to making music.

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Music is for everyone. Play with simple experiments that let anyone, of any age, explore how music works.

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Scroll down to see more options for each category.

Click on an image to view larger or to navigate to a webpage with more information.

Additional resources are linked in pink under each topic.

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Share your in progress or completed pieces with your art teacher

Blanchard - Email

Conant - Upload to Artsonia, Google Classroom, or Email

Gates - Upload to Artsonia, Google Classroom, or Email

Douglas - Google Classroom or Email

McT - Email or Upload to Artsonia.

Merriam - Email

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Ask a parent for permission and help before you try this out. You will need help warming up the rocks in an oven!

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Melted crayon rocks are made by "painting" on hot rocks with crayons, which melt as they touch the heated rock. This post shares tips and tricks for success.

Aren't these melted crayon rocks beautiful?! This is something we've done a few times over the past few years and is one of our favorites. I could have sworn I had posted about this before, but I guess not.

The rocks shown here were "painted" by Maia with the melting crayon. She especially loved the light blue and melted the entire crayon down to a nub.

How to Make Melted Crayon Rocks
MATERIALS

Small, smooth rocks

Crayons (to protect fingers, do not use short stubs)*

Oven

Baking sheet

Towel or mat to protect your table

Foil

A Note about Crayons: Any crayons will work, however, we've found that beeswax-based crayons and soy crayons work a bit better than petroleum-based crayons. The coating ends up waxier and more opaque. More beautiful!

Instructions for Making DIY Crayon Rocks

We are lucky to have a good supply of small rocks in our backyard. We gathered a colander full and washed and dried them.

I spread the clean rocks out on a foil-lined cookie sheet and put them in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven to heat up.

Once the rocks were hot, we transferred them one or two at a time to a protected surface to work, leaving the rest in the oven.

The table was protected with a placemat, a washcloth, and a piece of foil. Possibly overkill. The foil is pretty necessary to catch the melting crayon and I think a washcloth or towel is wise to keep the hot rock from damaging the table surface.

Have you tried making melted crayon rocks?
The crayon melts over the surface of the hot rocks and creates a smooth, vibrant, colorful coating that hardens into a waxy shell.

It is SO satisfying. A tad addictive even.

After working on this batch of rocks together while Daphne napped yesterday, Maia collected a second batch of rocks to work on with a friend.

The melting crayon is so liquid it's like painting with crayons. You can use one color or several. Make designs, swirls, dots, stripes, faces, whatever.

We used a variety of crayons, but mostly these push-up wax crayons, just because they were handy at the time and work so well. Plus the plastic handle keeps the crayon safely long even when the actual crayon piece is down to a nub.

Note: The Jolly push-up crayons shown here no longer seem to be available. However, we have made these rock crayons with many different kinds of crayons. These beeswax crayons are our favorite for this activity.

Here are some of Maia's melted crayon rocks.

And some of mine.

If you haven't done this yet, give it a try! And if your kiddos are too young to be working with hot rocks, then do it yourself while they nap. I bet you'll love it.

More Ideas for Melted Crayon Rocks
Pin It For Later

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How to Make Melted Crayon Rocks - A Favorite in Our House!

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Melted crayon rocks are made by 'painting' on hot rocks with crayons, which melt as they touch the heated rock. This post shares tips and tricks for success. Aren't these melted crayon rocks beautiful?! This is something we've done a few times over the past few years and is one of our favorites.

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Collect some sticks and natural materials from your yard to create a nature weaving.

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Welcome campers and parents! My girls and I are thrilled to have you visit us during "Let's Go Camping" week of Summer Fun Camp 2013. I was a Girl Scout through my entire childhood and Miss Juju became a Daisy scout this past year, which makes traditional camping crafts a favorite around our house. Today we are going to share a fun nature weaving craft and a classic camping activity with a twist. Let's get started on the nature loom!

To begin, collect sticks for your loom. 1/4 to 3/4 inch diameter sticks will work well for this craft. The length will depend on the size and shape of the loom you plan to make.

Lash the sticks together with yarn to create the base of your loom. Pull tight as you wrap the yarn in a criss-cross fashion around the two sticks, then tie it off at the back. Make the loom any size or shape you want.... you can make a rectangle or maybe a triangle.... you can get really crazy and make a trapezoid or even a hexagon! Tie a piece of yarn around one of the corners and begin wrapping it around the loom. Wrapping it around the stick twice will help keep the yarn taught and prevent it from sliding on the sticks. Tie the yarn off on one of the corners when you reach the other side of the loom. Get creative with your loom. Use colorful yarn or ribbon, string beads along the yarn as you wrap it, or paint the sticks with a fun design! Time to decorate your loom! Go on a nature walk in your backyard, neighborhood, or the park. Collect interesting grasses, flowers, leaves, seed pods, nuts, and pieces of bark that you find on the ground. If you are lucky, you may even find a feather. Just make sure you have permission before taking anything from another person's yard or the park. Weave your treasures through the strings of the loom. You can make a pattern or go will-nilly, it's up to you. All done! These nature looms look especially pretty when displayed in a window. And you can redecorate them anytime you please.... imagine how beautiful they will look weaved with colorful autumn leaves. On to today's activity.....

No campout is complete until you roast marshmallows over the fire and enjoy some of those ooey-gooey yummy s'mores. But most likely your parents are not going to let you build a campfire in the backyard. So what's the next best thing? Make those s'mores using the power of the sun!

Find a cardboard box that opens from one of its smaller sides. A large cereal box is a great size and shape. You also need aluminum foil, saran wrap, black duct tape, a piece of black construction paper, and scissors. And of course, marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate. Create a reflector by laying the box on one of it's largest sides and cutting a flap. Make three cuts, approximately 1 inch from the edge of the box, as shown in the photos below. Wrap the inside of the reflector flap with aluminum foil and use a few pieces of tape to secure it on the back.

What's the reflector for? It aims the sunlight into the cooker when the sun is not directly overhead. By angling the flap just right, sunlight reflects off the aluminium foil and onto the food.

Cover the opening you just cut with saran wrap and secure it with tape. It helps to tape down one of the sides first, stretch the saran wrap tightly across the opening and then tape it on the other side.

What does the saran wrap do? The clear film allows sunlight to pass through the opening, but traps the heat inside, similar to a greenhouse.

Now cover the entire box with black duct tape.

Why do we use black duct tape? First of all, the duct tape gives an additional layer of insulation that prevents heat from escaping the box. Secondly, a black surface is very effective at turning light into heat because it absorbs more light than other colors. If you ever sat on a black swing on a sunny day, then you've definitely experienced this. Oh boy do those things get hot!

Line the bottom of the cooker with a piece of black construction paper (remember black = more heat). Slide in your s'more and place the cooker on a flat surface in a sunny location. Adjust the reflector to get the most sunlight hitting your s'more. If the reflector won't stay in place, try propping it up with a stick from your yard. Cooking time will depend on outdoor temperature, cloud cover, and the sun's position in the sky. We made our s'mores on a clear, 80 °F day with the sun directly overhead. It only took 10 minutes to melt the chocolate and soften the marshmallow. The temperature inside the cooker was about 100 °F when we pulled the s'mores out! {I goofed a little when we made our s'mores... bonus points to the camper who can tell me what I should have done differently!} Time to eat! Careful, your s'more may be very hot and we don't want any campers to burn their mouths. Mmmmmm, delicious!

Thank you for stopping by today! We hope you had fun and would love to see photos of your nature looms and messy s'more faces on the Summer Fun Camp facebook page.

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Nature Weaving Craft and Solar Oven S'mores - Craftiments.com

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Welcome campers and parents! My girls and I are thrilled to have you visit us during "Let's Go Camping" week of Summer Fun Camp 2013. I was a Girl Scout through my entire childhood and Miss Juju became a Daisy scout this past year, which makes traditional camping crafts a favorite around our house.

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Use some clay, aluminum foil, and paint to make an intaglio print. Don't forget to practice if you don't get it quite right the first time!

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Learn about Indonesian shadow puppetry performances called Wayang Kulit and explore making your own shadow puppets.

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Conant, Gates, and McT students - if you forget how to upload to Artsonia check out this video. Ask your teacher for your Access Code if you don't have it!

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Uploading to Artsonia - Smartphone, Tablet, or Computer

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Found Object Sculpture Artist Bernard Williams

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Found Object Sculpture Artist Bernard Williams

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If you don't have the same materials they use at the end of the video try some play dough or modeling clay as the base of your found object sculpture.

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Found Object Sculpture Artist Bernard Williams

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New York based painter and printmaker shares how there is 'excitement in never knowing how the paintings will turn out'

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Shara Hughes Gets Lost in Paint | In The Studio | ArtDrunk

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Sesame Street Puppeteers Explain How They Control Their Puppets | WIRED

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Automatas are mechanical devices that move in patterns and often create a scene or narrative moment.

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The Exploratorium's Curious Contraptions exhibits showcase some truly delightful pieces of automata, mechanical devices that move in patterns and often create a scene or narrative moment. In this video, automata artist Keith Newstead talks about the art form while we're introduced to his creations.

"It's nice, the engineering and the artistic bit coming together... I think that's the nice thing: It's a different art form and at the end, you turn the handle and it moves, which is the big payoff."

Take a closer look at the details of his majestic dieselpunk pegasus:

This year's Curious Contraptions exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco runs from November 21-January 26, 2020.

Plus: More curious contraptions and more automata videos, including Rowland Emett's Marvelous Dream Machines, this hand-cranked kangaroo automaton, The Writer, automata by Pierre Jaquet-Droz.

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Automata artist Keith Newstead's Curious Contraptions | The Kid Should See This

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The Exploratorium's Curious Contraptions exhibits showcase some truly delightful pieces of automata, mechanical devices that move in patterns and often create a scene or narrative moment. In this video, automata artist Keith Newstead talks about the art form while we're introduced to his creations. "It's nice, the engineering and the artistic bit coming together...

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Slow Art Day - Institute of Contemporary Art Boston

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Slow Art Day - Institute of Contemporary Art Boston

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Celebrate Slow Art Day and pick a work of art in your home, book, or online to spend some time with. Follow the directions on the PDF linked below.

Ask your family for help finding a work of art online.
www.icaboston.org/collection
artsandculture.google.com

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Check out this Rube Goldberg Machine! How can you build a chain reaction machine using found items from around the house?

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The Quarantine Machine : a toilet paper chain reaction

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MarcPaperScissor: Cut Paper Collage Artist

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MarcPaperScissor: Cut Paper Collage Artist

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Check out how Marc Hoffenberg, known as MarcPaperScissor uses scissors, glue, paper, and sharpies to make his art. Make your own art - THINK - How can you cut, tear, bend, glue and overlap paper to make a collage? Will it be a picture of something or an abstract design?

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MarcPaperScissor: Cut Paper Collage Artist

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See how different art supplies are made, like paint, crayons, and erasers.

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Check out his Daily Monster Live Stream for more inspiration.

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Skillshare: "Drawing Daily Monsters: Finding Inspiration in a Drop of Ink"

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Check out slide 6 to see some of the elementary AB art educators sharing their work.

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Check out this video from AB art educator Heidi Kupferman.

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Homes with maker kids are guaranteed to have a bin filled with cardboard tubes from paper towels and toilet paper rolls. You never know when you need them! Like today, for example. Our Maker Monday project is all about creating Cardboard Tube Houses.

Give kids the basic idea and tools and they will surprise you with the many ideas they come up with. Our session's final products included a castle, a birdhouse, a whimsical fairy home and even SpongeBob SquarePants' pineapple house under the sea.

We'd love to see photos of the houses your kids create, too.
Supplies:
Cardboard tubes

Construction paper, card stock and/or standard white paper

Glue, tape and/or glue stick

Scissors

Markers or crayons

Ruler

Cupcake papers (optional for a "roof")

Measure the height of the tube against the paper, mark the paper with a ruler and cut the paper. Roll the paper around the tube, mark off the size needed and trim to fit.

Lay the paper flat and begin to decorate according to your design idea. It is much easier to draw and paste details on a flat paper than to try to do it on the rounded tube surface. Once completed, wrap the paper around the tube and tape into place. Top with a cupcake paper roof or build your own. We made spikey pineapple leaves for SpongeBob's house and trimmed the birdhouse cupcake paper to resemble leafy palms.

Here's how we made the castle with a longer paper towel roll. It would be cool to add a pennant and maybe a princess waving from the top.
For more Maker Monday projects and other fun stuff for kids, visit the Kidsburgh Activities page.

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Homes with maker kids are guaranteed to have a bin filled with cardboard tubes from paper towels and toilet paper rolls. You never know when you need them! Like today, for example. Our Maker Monday project is all about creating Cardboard Tube Houses.

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Ask a family member for help because this does require using a stove.

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3 ingredient Modeling clay adapted by That Art Teacher.

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Ask a family member for permission and help using a hand blender. A regular blender would work as well!

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How to make Paper Clay - Newspaper or Shredded Paper - Craft Basics

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Check out this resource put together by AB art educators to support making portraits. Includes resources for drawing and inspiration for other materials.

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Use the word of the day as inspiration to draw something! Learn more at TinkerLab.

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Bren has painted murals at Blanchard, Conant, Douglas, and Gates!

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Learn how to draw my mash-up drawings step-by-step. I will post a new video every day!

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Use one piece of paper to make your own zine.

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How to make a zine from one piece of printer paper

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Help teach a  neural network learn to recognize doodling. Check out the 50 million drawings.

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This is a game built with machine learning. You draw, and a neural network tries to guess what you're drawing. Of course, it doesn't always work. But the more you play with it, the more it will learn. So far we have trained it on a few hundred concepts, and we hope to add more over time. We made this as an example of how you can use machine learning in fun ways. Watch the video below to learn about how it works, and

Built by Jonas Jongejan, Henry Rowley, Takashi Kawashima, Jongmin Kim, Nick Fox-Gieg, with friends at Google Creative Lab and Data Arts Team.

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This is a game built with machine learning. You draw, and a neural network tries to guess what you're drawing. Of course, it doesn't always work. But the more you play with it, the more it will learn. So far we have trained it on a few hundred concepts, and we hope to add more over time.

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AB art educator Lauren Gould shared this with Douglas artists - but it might inspire you too! A design is radial when it is arranged around a central point.

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Find an old book that you have permission to transform into a new piece of art. Tear out the pages or keep them inside the book and transform the whole book into a piece of art you can flip through.

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Here you can find tutorials for a variety of origami patterns. If you don't have a square paper don't forget you can fold a rectangle into a square.

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origami "origami easy" "origami flower" "origami video" "easy origami"

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Easy Origami for Beginners Easy Origami for Kids #origamieasy

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Check out this list of ideas when you are stuck and not sure where to start.

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Practice your drawing daily with these daily drawing prompts.

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Make a gravity powered marble run or a tilt and roll marble run.

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Marble runs make the perfect STEM activity for kids, whether it be at home or in the classroom. Here are 10 super awesome homemade marble runs to get you started! Follow our STEM and STEAM Pinterest board! (This post contains affiliate links.) Now that we’re on summer vacation, we have tons of time to really get …

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See the tutorial from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Use 3x5 index cards, or cut paper into rectangles about the same size.
Video Tutorial

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Moving Image: DIY Flip Book | icaboston.org

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Canadian artist Keri Smith has put together daily explorations. May 12 is Boredom Drawings!

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Boredom Drawings — Exploration of the Day

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These are very repetitive drawings that are slightly time consuming but require no thought.  I find them quite helpful when you don’t know what to do.   Option 1.  Fill an entire page with small lines or slashes.  In one area make the lines become really condense

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Painting For Kids: Fun Yarn Art Painting!

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Looking for activities for children in grades K-2? Check out the Gr K-2 Art Choices Padlet.