This is a fun rainy day art activity that can be done with one child or many. It gives kids practice in interpreting and following directions as well as provides a chance for some artistic expression.
Pull out some paper, pencils, coloring utensils and whatever art supplies you would like to decorate with.
- Start activity by asking your kids to fold their pieces of paper into four squares.
- Ask kids to draw a bird in the top left square
- Ask kids to draw grass along the bottom two squares
- Ask kids to draw a cat in the bottom right square
- Ask kids to draw a dog in the bottom left square
- Ask kids to draw themselves anywhere in the picture.
- Now ask kids to examine their picture, what story does it tell? Is the cat chasing the bird? The dog chasing the cat? Are the animals all friends?
- Share pictures letting everyone see how they differently interpreted the instructions. This serves dual purposes as a listening exercise (making sure everything is where you asked it to be and that they have included all of the elements) as well as a lesson on how you can all listen to the same instructions but take away very different meanings.
- Have kids color or paint in their pictures.
- Create a story to tell based on the picture.
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