Art with Children

We made these exciting paper animals as we were reading animal stories during our winter holidays.

We drew animal faces/heads, bodies and tails on a sheet of paper. We used colored pencils for filling in colors and patterns. After cutting them out we folded the body in half so that it can be placed upright or in a standing position. We then glued the head and tail in place.

 The children enjoyed making more animals like bears, rabbits and hippos. Some of them decided to make a zoo out of cardboard boxes to place their animals.










Have fun making these easy foldable animals. We did not think of looking for templates before we started with this activity. I'll try to create some and post them here.

These are the sample images I had provided for this lesson, before we explored and discussed the facts.


Sample image 1

Sample image 2

Sample image 3
In addition to these we also viewed seahorses on popular nature websites for children. We found them in the most fabulous colors ever!!! We loved the fascinating camouflages the adopt and a whole lot of details!!! We also looked at their cousins, the pipe fish and the sea dragons and compiled some of the important facts.

Download seahorse fact sheet here.

Now here are some gorgeous artworks displayed by the children :)










Please feel free to write to us for images or help on this topic. Thanks for viewing!

Happy creating!

What more can we ask for if we could manage to include research, creativity and fun learning into one art lesson!


To view the seahorse lesson click on the image or here or for facts we collected
Click on the armadillo image for 'Draw an armadillo in four steps'.

  There are so many ways or styles to make learning intuitive and fun! I can't help but smile as a child would point to a picture of a whale and say 'This is easy' ' I know this, it is a whale', or 'I could tell its a humpback whale by its tail'! And the next question might be' Why do whales blow water into the air now and then'? If it is for inhaling fresh air....? But why does it blow up water? We looked up and found out why the whales squirt water! In a group session a short discussion of this sort can help every child learn about a new or interesting fact.

Our discover, create and learn art lessons are somewhat in this order : Pick a topic - find some interesting facts - have a s…

As an art lover I admire and love all art forms and techniques. Origami is one such wonderful art that we can make amazing things by folding paper. I am really inspired and will try making some. I am also planning to share a few ideas in our class, especially since we received some pretty origami paper as gifts for my students from Japan!

With my knowledge confined to making boats and planes or the most common 'fortune teller' also known as 'chatter box'. I am fascinated by the kind of artworks like cranes, flowers, stars, baskets and many more made by a twelve year old child in our class. The most fascinating was the 'Thousand origami cranes' she had created for her ailing grandfather, that took her over six months or more to create!! 
Here are few precious crafts she had created for me that are on display in my living room as well:


Now with the supplies in place, all we need to do is START! And we'll be back with more to share on this topic! I like to al…

In this lesson we enjoyed finding facts about the nine banded armadillos and drawing them as well. Here is how we made our armadillo in four steps.


Draw a semi circle horizontally and draw the nine bands(counting two lines as one band)Draw its head, eye and ears.Make four legs with claws and a tail with bands.Make the dots on its head, on both sides of the bands and legs and spikes on the bands.

Here are a few of the beautiful armadillos made by the children :




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Have fun making them as much as we did! Share with us and we'll be glad to post them here or on our FB page!

Recently we received some beautiful origami art gifts from Japan. They were from one of our student's grandmother and she had planned to send them for Christmas! There was a beautiful wreath made of pasta with lovely embellishments, little origami Santas and three gorgeous boxes one inside the other! All the children in the group were delighted to add them to our art collections and displays. The amount of inspiration and curiosity they brought in, is totally adorable! Here are the pictures we would love to share and will surely try to make some of our own as well!









A big 'Thank you' and hugs to the kind lady from all us at the AWC class!