Outdoor Art-ventures

What you need:

• Paper
• Pencils 
• Crayons 
• Makers 
• Watercolors 
• Chalk
• Glue

What to do:

1. Rubbing collage: Start by peeling the paper off a bunch of crayons. Head outside with a few large sheets of drawing paper and crayons. Demonstrate how to use rubbings to create different textures on paper. Your child can rub over the bark of a tree, a brick wall, sidewalk, signs, or gratings. After you've collected a variety of textures on the sheet of paper, take a moment to compare and describe the textures you collected. Cut the different rubbings apart and place them in one pile. Practice sorting by arranging each texture rubbing into different piles. Finish the project by gluing all of the rubbings into one big collage.
2. Building facades: Explain that a facade is the outside of a building. Show your child a few pictures of buildings and ask him to describe what he sees. Encourage him to notice decorative patterns, geometric shapes, and the placement of doors and windows. Go outside to make a pencil drawing of the front of a building. You can use your home, the front of his school, or any interesting structure in your town. Before beginning, talk about what you see. Ask your child to notice the overall shape of the building, shapes of windows and doors, patterns of brick or siding, and columns.