If you’re an elementary generalist, you probably have to teach your own art class. It can be tricky to find interesting art projects that don’t require a lot of special materials or skills. We have created a lot of different art projects over the years. Some of them have flopped. But, we’ve also come up with some favourites. Come read about some of the ways we help our students create beautiful works of art while teaching those valuable art outcomes through winter art projects.
Why Aren’t You Teaching Art?
One of the most challenging things about teaching art is finding the time to set up and clean up. We teach our students to be part of the process. We also encourage them to limit the mess to specific areas. If you’re avoiding teaching art because of the mess, then you need to read our post Are You Avoiding Teaching Art? How to Fix That.
Another reason teachers avoid teaching art is that they aren’t quite sure what to teach. Even if you aren’t an expert in design, you can teach students about colour, media, techniques and an appreciation for viewing and creating art. Best of all, most students enjoy the freedom of creating.
Do Your Students Struggle With Creativity?
For those students who struggle with creativity, art can be a little overwhelming. That’s why we create lessons that are structured enough for students to follow, but free enough for students to be creative and do their thing. You don’t have to be an expert to teach art in elementary school. The main purpose is to help students develop their interests so that when they attend secondary school they can make choices about which art classes they might like to try.
When our students struggle, we remind them that don’t have to be good at it. That’s the whole point of learning–new techniques and trying new things. This also applies to you generalist teachers who don’t think you’re good enough to be teaching art.
So, Why Winter Art Projects?
The challenge with winter projects is that there’s usually a lot of snow…white snow. So how do you paint white snow? We start by choosing different colours for our canvases. Black, blue or green can create an interesting effect for painting white tempera. You can have the colour of the background peak through the paint a bit to show the movement in the snow.
Winter art is among our favourite types of projects because they are often blue (a ninja favourite). These cool colours make for great winterscapes. There are so many things that can be created from winter that isn’t just snow and snowmen. There are trees and activities. Think about skating and hot chocolate.
We use a lot of winter art in our school year. This is partly because winter is the majority of the school year. It’s also so we can avoid Christmas-themed art projects for our students who don’t celebrate the holiday.
Save Your Time
We have already created a set of Winter Art Projects for you. You don’t need to go searching for projects that already work in elementary classrooms. Each project comes with a complete step-by-step lesson plan. We’ve even included photos of the steps where it helps. Each project includes possible modifications if you have students with fine motor issues or you don’t have the required materials. Includes reflection pages (in English and French) so students can think about their works of art.
You can find the Winter Art Projects in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). It is also available in a bundle of Art Projects for All Year in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). The bundle includes different projects that can be used any time of year. There are so many projects that you can do one project a week and still have some left over.
Winter Art Paintings
From snowmen to landscapes, we looked at different ways to represent winter landscapes. We tend to use tempera or watercolour paint when we have white paper. If you have dark paper, use tempera or acrylic so that the coverage of the white is better.
Sometimes you don’t need an actual project. Your students can be so creative. For example, when you have leftover scraps of watercolour paper you can create adorable snowman paintings. They’ll all be unique.
Hand out the scraps of watercolour paper. Explain that students need to paint a snowman. Depending on the skills you already learned, you may need to limit the materials. We tend to do a lot of watercolour painting in the fall, so students can easily create with watercolour.
That’s it. We don’t give any other instructions. It is amazing what students will create!
Our Winter Art Projects resource features lots of different types of painting techniques. Find Winter Art Projects in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
Winter Sculptures
When you make snowflakes or snowmen, giving students clay and some free time can result in beautiful creations.
Try one of the projects for free. We’ll send you the instructions to make these adorable snow people when you sign up for our email list. If you’re already on the list, you can find them in our Resource Library.
We gave students a ball of air dry clay and thirty minutes. They were instructed to make a snowman with some personality. Once the clay was dry (we left it to dry over the weekend), students painted and assembled (some pieces needed to be glued with a hot glue gun) their snowmen. We had a few extra craft materials so students added scarves and hats.
Our Winter Art Projects resource features a few different sculpting activities. Find Winter Art Projects in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
Other Winter Art Ideas
Printmaking is fun at any age, but as students get older, the print-making can get more elaborate. We cut pieces of cardboard. Students dipped them into white paint and made snowflakes. This was an activity that we did with our grade one buddies. It was simple enough for the littles, but the bigs could make more complicated and detailed snowflakes by using different-sized pieces.
We spend time with our grade one buddies and are always looking for simple projects we can do with them. We collected scraps of white, orange and black paper from the workroom. Students were paired up Each pair got a piece of new blue paper. They also got several pieces of the scrap paper. First they cut the white paper into small pieces. Our buddies glued these down on the paper to make the face of the snowman. They added an orange triangle for the carrot nose. Last, the big buddy cut small circles out of the black paper. This was used to make eyes and a mouth.
Looking for More?
You can find the Winter Art Projects in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). It is also available in a bundle Art Projects for All Year in our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). The bundle includes different projects that can be used any time of year. When we add new projects, you get the updates automatically included. We really can’t sum up all the different projects by writing about them. Visit the link and look at the photos of the projects in the previews.
We have a few other posts full of ideas for your elementary art class.
- How to Explore Métis Storytelling Through Indigenous Art Lessons
- Simple Art Projects for Back to School
- Simple and Stunning Remembrance Day Art Projects
- How to Create Memorable Remembrance Day Art Projects
- Art Projects That Will Last All Year
- Heart Art Projects You’ll Love
- 9 Spectacular Art Projects For a Pen and Paper
Have you tried one of our winter art projects? We love seeing our resources in the wild. Tag us on Instagram @brainninjastpt. Our email is also found in all of our resources.
