In the very early morning, I normally wake up with a soft, little face directly in my face saying something like, “MOMMY! Did you know that baby bats are the size of a grapes?” Or MOMMY! I need some paint.” Or I might just wake to the sound of Imagine Dragons blaring from their record player.

While a “Good morning” at the crack of dawn would be nice, I gotta admit it might be kind of boring too. There is never a dull moment when you hit the ground going full speed every. single. morning. Which I love. But I do have adult-y things that need to get done each morning as well. So I created this art project, set it out on our living room floor and told them the concept. It has given me ample time to feed our dogs and feed our fish and get breakfast started. Yet on other mornings, I decide to ditch my grown up duties and create with them… so everyone gets a banana for breakfast (well everyone except the dogs and fish!).

I told the kiddos that they could make color-FULL people. They could make themselves, they could make people or characters they know. They could make rainbow people. Or polka-dot people. All the people! Any kind of people their creative brains could imagine. They have had so much fun with this project. Clever details such as bow-ties, sunglasses and hats were quickly added. And the different hairstyles they came up with were: crew cuts, curly hair, bobs, bowl cuts and “lego hair”. I truly adore what they have made.

A few tips:
I pre-cut the heads and necks. It gave them a great starting point.
I put all of the supplies in trays and little buckets, which made it feel special.
I kept it simple. No paint, no pompoms, no glitter. (Simple is NOT bad! And I didn’t have to clean up unnecessary messes afterwards.)
I left this project out on our living room floor for multiple days, leaving them the option to meander over and make whenever they felt like it.

Supplies needed:
Construction paper
Scissors
Glue sticks
Markers

I am a huge fan of art projects where your kids do most of the work themselves, and you don’t spend 7 hours prepping and buying supplies. See Simple Summer Drawing and Big Paintings.

Photography by Rebecca Sanabria who loves art projects. And tacos.