Did you know that participating in art activities at home with your children has the potential to lead to increased feelings of well-being for the whole family? Making art has many benefits for your child’s cognitive and physical development, and is a great way to increase joy and creativity in the household. Art challenges are a guided way to have enjoyable family time while getting everyone to stretch their imagination.
Fun Art Challenge Ideas to Inspire Kids & Families
Art is more than a way to distract or entertain children after school. Creating art at home provides screen-free activities that spark imagination and problem solving—and both are great academic and life skills. With their themes and guidelines, art challenges are a big part of that development. Below are some fun creative challenge ideas.
Time-Bound Art Challenges
Set a timer and let your imagination flow. With time-bound art challenges the focus is on creating works within a specified time-frame. These can be short sprints of 2–5 minutes (or make it a little longer). Parameters like “sketch a flower in 5 minutes” or “make a duck out of clay in 10 minutes” are a couple of ideas to get started.
Material-Specific Challenges
Art is made with multiple types of media. Limiting your creations to a particular medium for a family night can challenge children to think differently about what they want to create. It goes beyond choosing watercolor or acrylic for paintings, or crayons for drawings. Think about making a collage or mood board with fabric from old clothes, or recreate a picture using colored dots or buttons. This gives you a chance to make art at home (while also recycling).
‘Bring the Outside In’ Challenge
Working nature into art is one of the oldest forms of creative expression. You can choose different items such as leaves, rocks and flowers and adhere them to a backer board to create a nature-themed home decor item. As they work three-dimensional elements into projects it can take away the limits of what children may think about art.
Back-and-Forth Drawing Challenge
These fun drawings not only bring out big imaginations, they also foster teamwork. Choose your drawing surface, from art paper to poster board, or even an empty cardboard box. The first person draws a shape, line (whatever comes to mind), then each person adds on to it until your family (or group) has created something special together.
Story Time Challenges
This is especially fun, as there are various ways to enact it. You can encourage your children to draw or paint their favorite scene or character from a story they like. Or you can encourage them to make a drawing based on a story they create. Either way, children get to participate in the magic of storytelling and creation.
We hope you try some of these projects, and that your children get to experience the freedom and fun of creativity. For more confidence-boosting art-at-home ideas, check out our free online art lessons for kids.
Explore Free Art Challenges & Lessons Designed for Children
Golden Road Arts creates art challenges and lessons for elementary and junior high students. Our work is possible thanks to artists, parents and educators who share our enthusiasm, and the incredible individuals who support us. Consider making a donation to keep these free art lessons and family joy going strong.
