art project ideas...ages 3-14 (help me!)

heya guys, i am a gal who somehow found herself a job at a catholic school startin up an art program. with bare prior training, i'm using my creative wit to entertain/teach these little...er, people...pre-k through 8th grade...
any any any ideas would be greatly appreciated, wacky or otherwise, and preferably involving found/household/cheap objects. what would be an catholic school art program if not for a nonexistant budget?!

 

Pine Cone Bird Feeders
Spread out wax paper, get some pine cones, attach a hanger either with glue or wire, roll the pine cones in peanut butter, then in birdseed. Hang outside and watch the birds enjoy. Its really fun if you can take the kids out on a walk to pick their own pine cones.

God Can's
Get coffee cans or something similar. Use magazines, flyers, newspapers and cut out words and pictures from them to decorate the cans. Somewhere on the Can have the words cut out "When I can't, God Can" ..or something like that. Decorate with glitter, pipe cleaners and all sorts of stuff. Explain that when a problem is heavy in their lives and they have been praying about it alot, to write it down on a piece of paper and put it in the can for God to take care of and let go of it so God can handle it.

Hope that helps.

Namaste

 

http://www.makingfriends.com/concraft.htm
http://www.kinderart.com/
http://www.theideabox.com/

 

this would prolly be better for the more lil ones, but on of my favs for lil kids,
is teaching them about flowers/anything that needs waters and how the drink. and basically, u can either use daises or celery both work great, fill a cup with food coloring of anychoice, obviosoly no green with the celery aand plop the celery in, and a lil bit, u can see the color of the food coloring starting to change the celery, the veins n leaves will all start to change color.
i kno not the greatest, but the kids may think it is cool to find out that one day the celery was green and the next day it is now blue.

 

Tie-dyeing stuff! Everybody loves doing that, apparently it's been really successful.

 

I used to lead a youth group* and we once made a paper mache person. It was a cool project.

For the head use a baloon; cover it with layers of the paper mache then when dried out, pop the baloon and extract.

The skeleton was just newspaper pages rolled diagonally into thin strips and held together with tape. The neck would of course have to be thicker.

Then make a 'skin' from paper mache, which is just strips of newspaper and wall paper paste. Good wholesome gross out fun.

To decorate paint with poster paints, dress in old clothes and make hair from wool.

*Said group was a St John's ambulance cadet division. And I was actually kind of second in command to the youth leader

 

hmm...some good ideas! everything in this school is iffy; no peanut butter, no nature. (allergies, urban environs) but the suggestions were cool and i'm checking out those websites as we speak. thanks! (i like the idea of birdhouses though, urging the kids to even consider nature...)

 

Kids Concoctions and Kids Concoctions 2

They are both full of ideas for all age groups. Stuff like fingerpainting with pudding and building volcanos in a soda bottle.

They have a web site too.

Kathi