Friday, October 31, 2014

"Sesame Street" Art Projects

Use simple art supplies for Sesame Street projects.


Sesame Street is designed to teach young kids about colors, numbers, letters and exploring the world around them. One type of exploratory activity is creating art projects inspired by the show. Because the target audience for Sesame Street toddlers, preschool and young elementary students, choose simple art projects based on Sesame Street characters and themes.


Elmo's World


Elmo's World art projects are highly accessible even for young children because they all use crayons as the main material. One idea is to give kids crayons and have them draw a picture of what Elmo's World looks like. Or, for older kids, have them draw what their own world would look like if it were made entirely from crayon drawings, like Elmo's. To make a large-scale project, draw Elmo's World on a large piece of butcher paper and hang it as a backdrop for acting out scenes.


Fuzzy Characters


Kids can make fuzzy Sesame Street characters by gluing colored yarn pieces to a picture of that character. Prepare by printing a picture of the character large enough to mostly fill a sheet of printer paper and cutting 1-inch pieces of yarn in that character's color. School-age kids can even cut the yarn themselves. To do the project, help the child paint a thin layer of diluted glue over the character and place yarn pieces on the glue. Finish with googly eyes and facial features made from black yarn glued over the top of the colored yarn.


Paper Bag Puppets


For an interactive art project, have kids make paper bag puppets of various characters on Sesame Street. The children can use these puppets to act out scenes from the show or make up their own scenes. For each character, use a flat lunch-sized paper bag and orient it with the open end at the character's feet and the bottom of the bag as the character's head. When the child puts his hand in the bag, he can open the head to reveal a mouth. Kids should cut construction paper and glue it to the bag to make features, such as the head, eyes, ears and inside of the mouth.


Alphabet Book


One of the recurring segments on Sesame Street focuses on learning the letters of the alphabet. For an art project for preschoolers or kindergarten students learning their letters, create an alphabet book. Print coloring pages online or create your own pages with a letter of the alphabet and glue on a printable picture of a character or item from the show starting with that letter. Coloring in the letter helps the children understand the shape of the letter and having the picture gives a clue to what the letter sounds like at the beginning of the picture's name.