Read to Me selection

Related Websites

Word Play

• Puzzles. http://www.puzzles.com/PuzzleLinks/WordPlay.htm
  Puzzles.com offers a wealth of word play activities and puzzles to use, as well as links to other great word puzzle sites.

• Pitara Network. http://www.pitara.com/activities/wordplay/
  This website offers some simple word games that can be played online; this site may also help to spark more ideas for use in storyhours or classrooms.

Art Appreciation

• First School. http://www.first-school.ws/THEME/artapp.htm
  First School offers a wide range of preschool activities to encourage artistic expression, including color mixing crafts, collage techniques, and some easy ways to introduce famous artists like Van Gogh and Picasso to primary grade kids.

• Kid at Art. http://www.kid-at-art.com/htdoc/previous.html
  Choose an area on the "brain" to find some projects and activities using different art media and techniques: painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, and more. The activities cover a wide range of abilities, with some best suited for older kids but many can be used in typical library settings, including painting without a paintbrush and step-by-step instructions for making great looking frames.

• Enchanted Learning. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/history/us/enc/artists.shtml
  This well-known website offers information and coloring pages on famous artists and their works, from Audubon to Whistler.

• Global Children's Art Gallery. http://www.naturalchild.com/gallery/
  To inspire the children in your library or school, print out and display some of the art created by children from around the world.

• Kids Art. http://www.kidsart.com/lessons.html
  Aimed primarily at teachers, Kids Art offers many art lesson ideas that can be used in library programs as well from scratch art to vegetable printing and much more.

• Kinderart. http://www.kinderart.com/sitemap.shtmlThis site offers a wide range of projects for preschoolers and older children. Although the projects have a classroom orientation, many of the projects can be used or adapted for other situations.

• Blottopainting. http://www.kinderart.com/painting/blotto.shtml
  Create random blots of paint onto small squares of paper and combine those small squares into a larger painting. This could be a great independent or group activity.

• Baby Wipes Tie Dye. http://www.kinderart.com/painting/tiedye1.shtml
  Use baby wipes and markers to create a great tie dye effect.

• Emotion Art. http://www.kinderart.com/painting/emotion.shtml
  Use crayons, markers, or paint to create lines and colors showing various emotions. This can also be combined with different kinds of music.

• Food Color Mixes. http://www.kinderart.com/littles/mixingcolors.shtml
  Create art with eye droppers and primary color food color dyes.

• Lifetime of Color. http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/
  Although this site is marketing specific products, some of the art activities can easily be done using any generic product.

• Smoosh Painting. http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/main.taf?p=1,40
• Sandpaper Drawing. http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/main.taf?p=1,39
• Organic Shapes. http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/main.taf?p=2,2,2,2
• Sensational Scribbles. http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/main.taf?p=2,2,2,3
• Resene Kids. http://www.resene.co.nz/artprojects/kids.htm
  This site is maintained by the Resene Company, but some of the projects for kids are great. A number of them are for very specific crafts, but two that lend themselves to an exploration of art techniques are the Furry Fun project (#3 on the page of pictured crafts), which gives instructions for creating pictures with pipe cleaners, and Marble Run, which gives tips for creating art with paint and marbles.

• Lesson Plan Page. http://www.lessonplanspage.com/Art.htm
  Although designed for teachers, this site offers a number of interesting art ideas that would also work well in a library setting, including painting with jell-o, a variation on marble painting, lots of collage ideas and more.