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Easy art projects are a great way to keep kids busy this summer. We have been participating in (and hosting) an Online Summer Montessori Art & Music Series with Lisa Nolan. I can’t wait to share with you our first art project of the summer that turned out to be an easy 4th of July Montessori art for kids!

In our online art series we are using a couple of different books for information and project ideas. The first book we are using is Art for the Very Young by Elizabeth Kelly and Joanne Mcconville. The projects in this book are easy to understand and use materials you probably already have at home.
We chose a project called Line Dropping. The instructions ask parents to talk with children about lines and how they work in art.
We started by cutting lines out of construction paper. Samuel (4) worked well with the scissor, but this was an introduction to scissors for Avalyn (2). Both did great, but it is SO much more fun to use the paper cutter. They did great taking turns and I let them cut at their own pace without much guidance on the width of the strips.(That was tough for me!) We adapted the materials a bit to cut from red construction paper and pasted their work to white sketch pad paper. I had the idea to buy a cheap sketch pad for each of the kids to start a sort of portfolio of their work. We found a couple pieces of scrap-booking paper at Hobby Lobby that had red, white, and blue stars. (I’m sure any craft store would have paper like this.) The kids and I talked a little about America’s birthday and how we all celebrate together!
After we finished cutting all our lines, Samuel and I worked on line dropping. (Avlayn chose to read a book instead of participating.) The project called for dropping a hand full of lines from standing on to a sheet of paper and see where the lines fell. Sam and I talked about how they fell and which way they were facing. He has been working on understanding directions like horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. (This, surprisingly, is a fun was my husband helps Sam brush his teeth!)
The line dropping project suggested gluing the pieces where they fell, but Sam wanted to place them in a different order. So we took his lines off and got out the glue. I added a strip of glue to each piece and asked the kids to place them as they saw fit. Neither of my kids like touching glue. Tactile thing, I guess. I’m sure you can allow your child to add the glue. I talked with them about the America flag and we saw how the flag has horizontal lines. I talked briefly about what the lines and stars mean as a little add on history lesson to our art project. I love how everything is connected in our homeschooling life!
The kids loved how their art turned out and proudly displayed them at dinner time to Daddy. Very fun and easy 4th of July Montessori art for the kids!
Happy 4th!