5 interesting tasks that will introduce children to art

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 15:40

Travel through different eras and cultural masterpieces with interesting exercises.

Art can be abstract and therefore not always comprehensible. Especially for a child. It will be difficult for him to imagine an amphitheater or a stained glass window. That is why the book "Amazing Art for Children: From the Ancient World to Leonardo da Vinci", published by the publishing house "AST", combines theory and practice.

Art critic Anastasia Postrigai and child psychologist Tatiana Grigoryan talk about the origins of human culture and acquaint young readers with the creations of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and others. For a real journey into the world of art, the authors use colorful illustrations and interesting practical tasks. With permission from Lifehacker Publishing, publishes five fascinating art exercises from different historical periods.

1. Art of Ancient Egypt

Pharaoh's headdress. Medium challenge

• You will need: plasticine, tools, colored cardboard.

• Lesson time: 30-40 minutes.
• Exercise develops: tactile perception, the concept of proportionality of parts, hand-eye coordination.

• Glue together 2 sheets of colored cardboard.
• Then on another sheet, for example a yellow one, draw a snake and carefully cut it out. Don't forget to draw her mouth and eyes!
• Now make "beads" and "gems" from plasticine. Attach your plasticine jewelry to your headpiece.
• Now you are a real pharaoh - put it on and play!

2. Art of Ancient Greece

Temple. Low difficulty task

• You will need: black sheet of paper, white gouache.
• Lesson time: 10-20 minutes.
• Exercise develops: visual and motor memory, thinking, speech.

• Draw a white rectangle on black paper.
• Place a triangle on top.
• Draw a trapezoid at the bottom. Use the vertical lines to draw the columns.
• Wow! Ancient Greeks would have envied your temple!

3. Art of Ancient Rome

Coliseum. High difficulty task

• You will need: a sheet of paper, scissors, paints or pencils, glue.
• Lesson time: 30-40 minutes.
• Exercise develops: visual-figurative and creative thinking, the ability to assemble a whole from parts.

• Cut two strips 15 cm wide.
• Then draw windows on one of them. Do the same with the second strip. To make it faster, you can put the painted strip on a clean one and circle the windows. This method is called "stencil".

• Glue the strips together to form a circle. This is the facade of your Colosseum.
• Now cut and glue the paper tape as shown in the diagram. Tuck the cut parts a little - these will be the seats in your theater.
• Now lay the layers inside the facade, starting with the smallest one.
• Ready! The Colosseum is built.

4. Romanesque art

Lock. High difficulty task

• You will need: A4 sheets of paper, scissors, paints or pencils, glue.
• Lesson time: 30-40 minutes.
• Exercise develops: the ability to assemble a whole from parts, hand-eye coordination, contributes to the formation of spatial representations.

• Let's start with the towers. Take four A4 sheets and roll them horizontally into a tube. Glue the free edge to the "body" of the tube.
• Roll one sheet and glue it vertically. To another sheet, add half an A4 sheet to increase the height, and also glue it vertically.

• Now cut the A4 sheet into four pieces and fold each rectangle into a cone. Cut off excess paper. You have got two cones - these are the roofs of future towers.
• Cut one A4 sheet in half and twist two more cones more.

• Now we will make the walls. To make them lower than the towers, you need to cut a strip of 5 cm from A4 sheet. The rest will be 15 cm long - this is the height of your wall.
• Draw gates and tiny windows on the sheets. Then glue around the edges of the tower sheet. To glue the walls together, tuck the paper a little, spread it with glue and dock it to the tower.

• Now we will make a central rectangular tower. Glue two A4 sheets together. Then fold as shown in the photo. Leave a fold of 1 cm, spread glue and join.
• For the roof, take half an A4 sheet cut in half and just fold it in half. You just have to insert the tower inside the walls and install the cones-roofs.

The Romanesque paper castle is ready

5. Gothic

The Rose. Medium challenge

• You will need: colored paper, cardboard, pencil, scissors, glue.
• Lesson time: 30-40 minutes.
• Exercise develops: color perception, fine motor skills, interhemispheric connections, hand-eye coordination.

• Circle the round object on brown paper. Cut out a circle and glue it to a piece of cardboard.
• Then cut out circles, ovals, droplets from colored paper.
• Place a small circle in the center of the large circle. From it in different directions, start spreading the ornament of your Gothic rose.

In the book, not only assignments are good, but also theory. The authors clearly explain how different masterpieces were created, and show the connection between art and real life. The storytelling in a playful way will help you better understand the characteristics of the cultures of different peoples.