Eight of the best home art activities for kids
Published on 19 January 2021
We’ve loved seeing you being creative at home with our online activities. If you need more inspiration during lockdown, we've picked out some other great resources from the UK's art galleries and organisations...
Firstsite
Artist activity packs
- Suitable for: children aged 5+ and their families
- Materials needed: paper, pencils, other materials easily found around the home
Can you imagine inviting Grayson Perry RA or Gillian Wearing RA into your living room for an art lesson?
Firstsite’s activity packs are the next best thing, with poetry, drawing and crafting challenges from some of the most famous names in British art. Download their packs and you’ll soon find yourself stacking loo-roll paper as high as you can, creating alien planets and posting art to your friends and family.
We recommend using these activities for a creative distraction in between schoolwork, or for a fun weekend activity.
Tate Kids
- Suitable for: children aged 5+
- Materials needed: some activities just need a computer or smartphone, but for others you’ll need pencils, paint, paper and other materials
If you need something to keep children entertained and educated for hours, then Tate Kids is for you.
The award-winning website is designed for kids to explore by themselves, but you’ll also find it hard not to get involved yourself. Be inspired by accessible and engaging introductions to famous artists and movements, and weeks’ worth of home activities, entertaining quizzes and interactive games.
We recommend curating your own list of activities with your child — you’ll be spoiled for choice.
Goldsmiths CCA
Down, up, down, up
- Suitable for: children aged 5+ and their families
- Materials needed: a pen, a piece of paper and some imagination
These activities are super easy, and you can dip in whenever you want or use them as a daily break from schoolwork.
Down, up, down, up is the "social social-distancing school" from Goldsmiths Contemporary Art Gallery in London. Delightful (and often hilarious) illustrations introduce simple, do-at-home activities such as pausing TV and drawing ten things on screen, drawing where you think food comes from and what you’d place on a public plinth.
We recommend trying to do one activity a day — they’re just as fun for adults as they are for children.
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
Family activities
- Suitable for: children aged 5+ and their families
- Materials needed: paper, pencils, scissors, glue and other materials that can be sourced around the home or bought from the supermarket
It’s clear how much love, experience and skill have been poured into these art activities by the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art.
These hands-on activities include repurposing cereal boxes for cubist sculptures, creating tesselating patterns and Modigliani-inspired portraits. Each activity sheet is also packed full of information on art techniques, artists and movements.
If your child enjoys multi-sensory activities then we highly recommend their Sensory Mark Making activity.
Towner Eastbourne
#MakeShiftStudio
- Suitable for: Children aged 3+, those with SEND and their families
- Materials needed: Easy-to-source materials found around the home
If your child enjoys sensory play or sensory learning, then these workshops are perfect for you.
Amy Leung’s #MakeShiftStudio challenges are engaging video workshops accompanied by downloadable illustrated guides. Follow along to create your own relaxing sensory tools, such as your own lava lamp using a plastic water bottle, some oil and food colouring.
We recommend working through these workshops with your children, and don’t forget to check out their second season of workshops using things around the home with artist Rachel McGivern.
Foster + Partners
#ArchitectureFromHome
- Suitable for: children aged 5+ and their families
- Materials needed: basic equipment, pens, paper, cardboard, scissors, glue. A printer
Foster your inner architect with these crafting activities by Foster + Partners.
There’s a particular satisfaction to creating your own 3D model, and luckily all you’ll need is paper and a bit of imagination. One of our favourites is learning how tension can keep buildings standing, using just some boxes and string to create your own towers.
When you're finished with your creations, promote your children to curators and ask them how they want to display their models in your home.
Whitworth Art Gallery
Early years Atelier — Play
- Suitable for: children aged under 5
- Materials needed: basic equipment, pens, paper, cardboard, scissors, glue
Colouring-in can get...a little dull. Have fun getting messy and multi-sensory instead with Whitworth Art Gallery's Early Years programme.
The Whitworth’s new online programme runs weekly via Zoom on the first Monday of the month. Don’t worry if you can’t make it, though, as all of their sessions from 2020 are also available on their website for you to dip into.
Each session — whether it’s mark-making, still life or creating ice sculptures — is all about promoting problem-solving and encouraging your child to explore for themselves, use their imaginations, be creative and learn through play.
Royal Academy of Arts
How-to activities
- Suitable for: children aged 5+
- Materials needed: basic equipment, pens, paper, cardboard, scissors, glue
We don't want to blow our own trumpet, but we couldn't resist including our own fun activities to do at home!
Take advantage of the darker evenings with home-made shadow puppets, learn new art techniques such as chalk printing, create sculptures out of your recycling and brighten up old tea-towels with some fabric printing! Each activity is easy to follow along, with either written instructions or video tutorials.
Our activities are designed as fun activities for both adults and children — get making, and share your creations with us on social media.
