5 Art Center Ideas to Try -

If you are looking for some new art center ideas for your classroom, look no further! Today I’m going to share with you 5 art centers my students have been enjoying lately.

After visiting two choice-based art classrooms, I’ve decided to incorporate some free choice days into my class schedule. I think it is important to let students try out different art materials and ideas at their own pace. However, I am still continuing my art curriculum and will teach whole-class projects throughout the year, interspersed with some free choice days.

Hands reaching into a large container of colorful beads, with a label that says "Beads, Wire and Pipe Cleaners" — ideal for your next Art Center project.

1. Beads, Wire and Pipe Cleaners. What can you make with these materials? I have two large plastic jars: one of wire pieces and one of pipe cleaner pieces. You know when you open a bag of pipe cleaners, use them for a project and are left with some small pieces & curled stems and it’s really hard to get them back in the bag? When I have those, I throw them into this leftover pipe cleaner jar. Same thing with wire pieces. The beads also just seem to multiply overnight. I have never bought beads at school.. people just keep donating them. This station was really popular for kids to make jewelry or random things.

Child using Crayola Marker Airbrush Set with stencils to create colorful artwork in a sketchbook, exploring various art projects and discovering new creative activities.

2. Crayola Marker Airbrush Set: My sister-in-law gave this to me for my birthday. I brought it to school for the kids to test out, and they loved it! It involves a lot of physical pumping and it was a good exercise in patience and teamwork. One kid can pump while the other sprays. There are stencils and markers included and the kids can spray paint like a real airbrush! After trying this out, I bought two more for my classroom. I read the reviews and it seemed like many of the reviews stated people were having problems getting their pumps to work. I haven’t had problems with these three. The keys to using these were to 1) make sure the marker is firmly pushed in all the way and 2) pump 15 times when the marker stops spraying. I used them with grades 3-6 so far.

I am planning to use these later in the year and have the kids design and cut out their own stencils.

Stack of various drawing books on a table, with a "Free Draw Station" sign in front.

3. Some students just love the opportunity to free draw. I put out some of my favorite drawing books such as Big Book of Cartooning and Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad.

Hands molding kinetic sand next to a yellow box.

4. Waba Fun Kinetic Sand . This stuff is so cool! It just feels really strange.. indescribable. It is like wet sand, but doesn’t dry. It will hold it’s shape fairly well and won’t make a huge mess everywhere. It is easy to scoop up and put away. Just put it on a tray and you are ready for some indoor fun. I don’t know why it costs so much on Amazon… I bought the same package at a local teacher store for about $15. Check out some other online stores before you buy it.

Hand shaping green and blue Model Magic clay with text overlay: "Creative Activities with Model Magic".

5. Model Magic Modeling Compound I love Model Magic and the kids love Model Magic, but I can never come up with any really great all class projects for it, so this ends up as a free choice center. I limit the colors and amounts the kids can use, because this is not super cheap. Model Magic is not reusable and it will air dry overnight. If you open a package and want to save it, you will need to put it in a sealed plastic bag. It will stay fresh for a few days. This is a fun option if you have a small group of kids.

Do any of these ideas sound fun to you? Do you have any tried-and-true center ideas?

I have more center ideas to share with you that I will write about it a future post.

Discover more from Art is Basic | An Elementary Art Blog

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

One Response to 5 Art Center Ideas to Try

Shelley Menhennet says:

September 18, 2015 at 8:15 am

I am thinking of incorporating a free choice session in the middle of each term next year. I teach art to grade 3-6 and thought that I could put out a set of activity centres and use them across the grade levels all week thus giving all the chn a free choice session and myself a quiet week with little intervention in what the chn are doing, as opposed to every other session when I am on my feet and in action the whole time. I love using model magic and with a whole class I have successfully integrated it with painting by creating a three dimensional element to go on a painting.
It is light enough that once dry and painted the glued model magic pieces actually stay on the paintings on cartridge paper without a problem. This year my grade 3 students have painted awesome vases of sunflowers with one of the sunflower heads made of model magic, in the style of Vincent van Gogh. Last year the grade 3 students made a small model of themselves screaming after painting a background in the same style as Edvard Munch’s famous work. Some of these were hilarious. So you don’t need a lot of this expensive material to go round a whole grade if you are only making one element of a piece of work. I only ever buy white model magic as it is so easy to paint.