Art Party for Kids

Today Tabitha from Meet Penny is sharing a wonderful kid-friendly party idea that is educational and fun! She even included some free printables! Thanks Tabitha!

If you are looking for a unique party idea for children of any age, an art party can be fun and delicious. Our family recently attended an art party for kids with our co-op group that focused on the color wheel. The experience was not only exciting for the children but it was educational and can easily be reproduced at home.

What you need

• Disposable cups (3 for each child)
• White icing
• Food coloring in red, yellow, and blue
• Small cookies, like Nilla Wafers
• Paper plates
• Plastic knives
• Cupcake liners
• Printable color wheel (optional)
• Printable color wheel worksheet (optional)

Pre-party preparation

1) Mix the icing with the food coloring to make red, yellow, and blue icing. You can easily transfer the icing from your mixing bowl to the disposable cups with a small metal scoop or a piping bag.

2) Place 7 to 13 cookies (depending on how elaborate you want to make your color wheel) in individual bags. Also drop in a plastic, child-safe knife and 4 to 10 cupcake liners. The tiny liners for candies will work well.

At party time

Gather the children around tables and give each child one bag, one cup of icing in each of the three colors, and a paper plate. Instruct the children to listen carefully for instructions but don’t stress if they get caught up and just start to nibble. This is supposed to be fun.

Primary colors

Introduce the color wheel and tell the children that all the colors in the world come from three basic colors, also called the “primary colors,” which are red, yellow, and blue. Ask the children to smear a little of the three colors onto their cookies and set them on the plate to form a triangle. (You might want to have a triangle drawn on the plate.)

Secondary colors

Explain to the children that you can make three more colors by mixing the three primary colors. Have the children place some red in a cupcake liner. To that add yellow and mix it for orange. Do the same for yellow and blue to make green and the same for blue and red to make violet. These are the secondary colors.

As the children mix each secondary color, have them spread some icing on a cookie and place it between the color combinations.

You might decide to stop here but if you want to complete the color wheel, you will need to add the tertiary colors.

Tertiary colors

To make the last set of colors on the color wheel, ask the children to mix a primary color with the next secondary color, working around the color wheel in a clockwise direction. Follow the steps as mentioned for making the secondary colors, placing the decorated cookies between each color mix.

Once the tertiary colors are finished, you can have the children choose any two colors opposite to one another on the color wheel to make gray.

Time to serve some water and devour the masterpieces! If a child is anxious about eating their work of art, provide them with a worksheet to complete so they can remember their snack before they eat it, or have a camera handy to photograph the child with their plate.

Kick the party up a notch

Decorating

If you want to go all out, consider decorating with primary-colored balloons and streamers. Consider making a rainbow along the wall or across the ceiling using rectangular table covers or tulle netting. Use paint chips (available for free in the paint department of any hardware store) to make a banner or mobile. Create easy pom poms from brightly covered tissue paper and hang in groupings around the room.

I recommend leaving the work surface white so the children will not be distracted.

Goodie bags

Prepare Rice Krispie treats and cut into rectangles. Stick a popsicle stick into one end of the rectangle and then dip the treat halfway into melted candy coating in various colors, allowing the coating to run a little toward the stick before placing on wax paper to dry. The end result looks like a paint brush with dripping paint. Package in clear cellophane bags and secure with curly ribbon.

Other ideas include sending each child home with a set of real paints or crayons, recycling plastic bottles by filling with M&Ms or Skittles with the colors separated and stacked, or an age-appropriate book about the basics of art.

Art parties can be as unique and creative as you want them to be… not to mention fun and delicious!

Free printables for you ~

Color Wheel (PDF)

Color Wheel Worksheet (PDF)

Tabitha Philen, also known as “Penny” to her readers, is a homeschooling mother of four children. Married to an extremely, supportive husband, Tabitha blogs at MeetPenny.com about homeschooling, frugal living, kitchen solutions, and parenting issues. She loves providing her readers with free printables and enjoys a highly intereactive community on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Pinterest.