Successful art projects at a birthday party? Yes! Art Party: Pirate Theme

I started hosting birthday parties at my studio, No Corner Suns.  But, I don't want families to come to an art studio and get a blah blah run of the mill cookie cutter project for the kids to make.  I want it to be an art lesson!  I want the kids to make choices and find success, learn, and enjoy what they are doing.  

In anticipation of more parties being booked at No Corner Suns, (fingers crossed) I started preemptively planning party themed lessons.  Welcome to Art Party! 

For one class, we concentrated on Pirates!  We made these really cute pirate hats as our warm-up.  I taught the kids how to make a skull & cross bones, but they could decorate them any way that they liked.

For our project, we made Treasure Maps!  This involved a few visuals and I brought a few books for the kids to look at.  My fun little group was 1st - 6th graders, and they all had fun!

Free Handout and Sub Lesson Download: Ande Cook's Mapping your Neighborhood

Several years ago SchoolArts sent out packets of Ande Cook pages to subscribers.  The delightfully illustrated "Mapping your Neighborhood" was one of them.  This handout asks student to think carefully about the details in their neighborhood and try to draw a map of everything they can remember.  I wrote out a mini-lesson plan suitable to leave the handout with sub.  It is also great for early finishers and to supplement another lesson.  I have used this in 3rd grade and up with good results.

Here is Ande Cook's book Art Starters that a lot of these worksheets from SchoolArts are originally from.