Family Portrait Kid Craft

Family Portrait Kid Craft

This is the sweetest art activity for Family Week as part of our summer series. We love having the talented Kelly from Cloudy Day Gray share this adorable idea today!

Kids always have questions about families, especially as they learn about and start visiting friends’ houses. As an elementary school teacher, I believe that talking about different types of family life is a stepping stone to a greater understanding of diversity and acceptance.

One of my favorite ways to open this discussion and celebrate family is to spend a week reading stories about different types of families each day and then painting a picture at the end of the week to “capture” what family means to each person.

Here is a list of books I recommend:
Who’s In My Family?: All About Our Families (Let’s talk about You and Me)
The Family Book – a book about the love and diversity of different families
Maybe Days – a book for children in foster care
Tell Me Again About The Night I Was Born – a book about adoption
Two Homes – about separation and divorce
One, Two, Family – a single parent family
Little Treasure – the story of one woman’s journey to become a mom
The Great Big Book Of Families – a celebration of ALL families
All Kinds of Families – celebrating each role in the family
Stella Brings the Family – the story of a Mother’s Day celebration without a mother
One Family – a story of a mixed race family
Peace is an Offering – a celebration of the larger family of neighbors

Here is how you can make your own family portrait:

Supplies: a small canvas for each artist, paint, paintbrush, and markers.

Process: Pick a light color to use as a base and paint onto each canvas. You can do this ahead of time, or have your artists complete this step. Once it is try to the touch, pick a darker color to use for the drawing. Ask each artist what family means to them and to express that on the canvas.

My three-year-old said, “Here, it’s us, the people in the house,” so she drew for a bit and then I helped her draw the house.

My son (age 6), who is learning to write sentences, went straight to work expressing his love for his family and adding a portrait of each of us at the top.

On the back, I wrote their names and ages so that years from now we can look back and remember what life was like for our family in 2016.

Time: This depends on your artists – for my family it took about 30 minutes to complete.

We all have cloudy days. I believe that it is what you do with those cloudy days that defines who you are. Join me on Cloudy Day Gray as I learn to give, live, and love by celebrating the everyday as a crafter, mother, and donate life advocate.