How to stock an art kit
For the times when your grandkids are getting wound up or bored, or it’s too hot/too cold/too wet to go outside—or you just want to have some fun—I recommend having an art kit ready. You can use it to:
· Do a project pegged to their interests of the day
· Tell a story
· Make decorations, cards, or gifts for upcoming holidays
· Just create
Doing art or crafts together lets you help the child develop skills (or lets them practice mostly on their own). You get to see and hear what they imagine about their creations. You can work on sharing and appreciating each others’ work. And you get to exercise your own creativity, too.
What to have in your art kit
If you want to start small or keep costs down, paper and pencil or colored pencils are time-honored gates to imagination and art.
If you want a little more flexibility, fill a simple storage box. Mine is a repurposed file folder. Inside it or nearby I keep:
Things to stave off mess or damage: Protective cloth for the art surface (a table or counter), painting smocks (we use old adult T-shirts)
Things to attach things: Glue, glue sticks, cellophane tape, masking tape
Cutting tools: Kid scissors (adult scissors out of reach of little ones)
Drawing tools: Washable markers, crayons, colored pencils, pencils, eraser
Painting tools: Water-color paints, brushes in several sizes
Things to mold with: Clay or playdough, toothpicks
Things to draw on and cut: White paper, construction paper, cardboard
Decorations: Googly eyes, stickers
Fun extras: Stuff you save (see below), dot markers, paint sticks, tempera paint, oil pastels, specialty paper, coloring books, crepe paper, tissue paper, stamps and stamp pads, chalk, glitter
Where find or buy supplies
Garage sales (aka tag sales) or buy-nothing groups: These are great resources—my supplies of clay, crayons, and colored pencils came from garage sales. Remember that some art supplies dry out—yes, buy colored pencils or solid watercolor paints used, but maybe not glue sticks or playdough.
Save stuff: Cardboard tubes, scrap paper, wrapping paper, ribbon, twine, yarn, cloth, buttons, cereal boxes (for the cardboard), delivery boxes (for making buildings, etc.), pine cones, cards and stickers that arrive as promotions.
Art stores, box stores, toy stores, craft stores: Any of these might be the right source, depending on whether what you want is basic (glue, tape) or specialty (Valentine-themed sequins).
Problems and tips for projects
Mess and more mess: Mess is part of the deal when it comes to art projects, so if you can’t tolerate a little mess, either stick to drawing or find another creative outlet to share. I personally have moderate mess tolerance—I’m happy to clean paper scraps or dripped paint off the floor, but don’t want paint on our blinds or walls. So I gauge what needs protecting and the self-control of the young artists. Always: plastic picnic cloth over the table; painting smocks for messy projects. Those blinds: With three year olds, I pull them up; with four year olds, I leave them down. I also announce it’s time to move onto something else if the kids’ self-control fades. In theory, you might also get the kids to help clean up—I admit I don’t usually get that far! Oh, and if you hate mess do not do projects with glitter.
Craft kits? My grandkids don’t like art projects that have a specific end product in mind, like craft kits designed to create a specific ornament. Some kids probably love the approach and results, though—I recommend an educated guess about your grandchildren’s preferences before purchasing kits.
How to? When you don’t know how, the internet is your friend—that and winging it. When my grandkids said they wanted to make space shuttles, I briefly despaired (I can't even clearly picture a space shuttle!), then found this link. We riffed on the instructions to use supplies we had on hand.
