Indoor and Outdoor Art Stations for Cloud Week

You might recognize this scene from yesterday's post where we had a BIG old PIN-FAIL with bubble cloud painting. What WORKED about this setup was the ability to take the art outside. If those blue bubbles had gone all over the place indoors, I might have thrown a hissy fit, but outside on an old quilt? No biggie.

My plan had been to do "stations" of art so that no one child was bored. One kiddo was supposed to do bubble art, one was to just color in a coloring book and the third got a giant stick of blue chalk, an easel and some butcher paper to draw the clouds he saw in the sky. The previous day we had read a bunch of library books about clouds, so they were still in the excited "Hey I see a moutton cloud!!" mode and this simple activity was actually the best of the three.

When the temperatures heated up in the afternoon, it was time for some INSIDE art projects.

The difference between the two? Our inside projects aren't really messy at all!

This is our art setup indoors. A really beat up round table (2 bucks at a school auction!) that was perviously used in a classroom so it is TOUGH. The table gets a new coat of paint once or twice a year and when guests come over, the table gets a round tablecloth. Most of the time though, it is just a beat up round art table in the middle of our house!

In the winter, the kids will eat at this table as well. Note a few things:

1. The kid table is located on laminate flooring -- far enough away from carpeting or rugs!

2. The table is RIGHT next to the kitchen making crafting and eating tasks easy.

3. The proximity to the kitchen also allows them to work while I am cooking (and keep them OUT of the kitchen when there are hot things being shuffled around).

4. The table is also right next to our entry room/living room area, so I can also work on a couch (or read a book!) while they are busy crafting and we are still together, but separate.

For this particular week, the crafts were REALLY simple indoors. I downloaded this cheap cut file (99 cents) for making 3D clouds and we really went crazy with them. The boys made the 3D clouds themselves (pictured below) out of cardstock, but then we also used the leftover outlines of the couds as templates for "cloud scenes" and then they got into it and started cutting their OWN clouds and well...2 hours later we had a LOT of scrap cardstock and construction paper everywhere. (PS -- Totally not too big of a mess indoors, but can you IMAGINE that mess outdoors? I shudder. Choose your locations wisely!)