Keep the fun going all year long with this roundup of creative, simple, and fun 1st grade art projects. Whether you feel like diving into painting, mixed media, sculpture, or other art projects, there’s something for everyone on this list.
We partnered with one of our favorite art teachers on Instagram, Ms. D. (@art.party.with.ms.d), to bring you these incredible ideas. We love her theory of art education: “Beautiful art + happy students + teaching about a wide range of artists will always be a winner for me!” She creates projects inspired by all sorts of artists and illustrators, and also makes an effort to tie her projects into the season and what students are studying outside the art room. We definitely recommend you check out her page to get more details and photos for each of these projects, plus many more fantastic ideas for the primary art room!
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Art Portfolio Templates
This bundle contains art portfolio cover sheets for preschool to grade 5, as well as a template that works for any grade. It also includes an art project planning sheet and an artist study worksheet.
1st Grade Art Projects
Courtesy of @art.party.with.ms.d
Origami Animals
Ms. D often uses origami in her art projects. It adds a really cool textural element, plus gives kids a chance to brush up on their fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. You’ll see more of these animals featured in the projects on this list!
Need a quick project, or want to support your school’s readathon week? Ms. D’s 1st grade art students personalized their simple bookmarks with warm or cool colors and an initial. Quick, easy, and useful!
Here’s some of that origami we promised, and doesn’t it look incredible suspended above these simple clay flowers? This is the kind of project kids will love to take home and show off.
Create the backgrounds with bleeding tissue paper and rubbing plates. Then, use a guided drawing session to help kids add these happy monkeys to the scene.
Students learn a lot when they create these cityscapes inspired by the work of Okuda San Miguel, including foreground and background. They can create these as 3D pop-ups, or just leave them flat instead.
Teach kids about printmaking with a project like this one, which also incorporates primary and secondary colors, color mixing, symmetry, and paper sculpture.
Dinosaurs are always a big hit with kids, and they’ll love the bright colors and unique patterns in this project, inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. It uses liquid watercolors and crayons for the backgrounds, with black construction paper and colored pencils for the dinos.
Lizi Boyd’s picture book gave Ms. D the idea for this clever art project for 1st graders. Let each student choose an animal to highlight with their “flashlight” to bring their night scenes alive.
This was a Lunar New Year project, but it’s terrific for any time of the year, especially if your students are studying reptiles in class. Kwik Stix paint pens help cut down on the mess too.
Llamas are always popular, and your students can learn to draw these by using basic shapes. There’s also a STEM connection here through the geometric backgrounds with their simple but striking patterns.
Looking for a project that families will treasure? Try these portraits inspired by the work of Reyna Noriega, a beautiful twist on traditional silhouettes. Be sure to provide a wide variety of construction paper hues so every student can see themselves accurately represented in their final masterpiece.
Here’s another origami project, this one featuring snowy owls against a pine tree background. The basic idea works well for other seasons and types of owls too, especially in fall foliage colors.
Graciela Hasper’s work influenced these colorful cubes. Students get a bit of a STEM challenge as they learn to cut out the middle of paper and construct their 3D shapes too.
These dragons are FIRE! This paper sculpture project is terrific for Lunar New Year but would also be perfect to tie in with a unit on Chinese culture.
Save your bubble wrap—students can use it to create the texture on these cool ghosties! We absolutely love this unique take on Halloween art projects for 1st graders.
Show students that art isn’t just about bright colors—texture, lines, and light and shadow matter too. Kids will especially enjoy getting to spatter-paint the snow!
We’re constantly amazed by the detailed work Ms. D helps her young students produce. It’s all about taking things in steps: sponge painting the bricks; creating the windows separately with washable markers, water, and Sharpies; even laminating the windows for a bit of shine makes this project truly stand out.
This is another one of those projects that will take some time and patience, but it gives young artists skills and confidence to create in and out of the art room. One of our favorite details? The vases are made from the messy mats students used to clean their brushes while they worked.
There’s so much happening in this collage project! Scrapbook paper and oil pastels combine for impressive results inspired by student explorations of plants and gardening.
Mixed-media projects like this one (inspired by the contemporary street artist) help students learn to use a variety of materials. These skull collages use oil pastels, Kwik Stix paint sticks, Sharpies, and even rainbow scratch paper.
Focus on primary colors with these adorable penguins! Using chalk pastels to draw the penguins also gives students the opportunity to learn about shading.
Kids spend a lot of time in the school building—why not make it the focus of a 1st grade art project? Ms. D’s students studied Harlem Renaissance artists like William Johnson, then painted their alma mater in a similar style.
Click the button below and fill out the form on this page to receive our free printable bundle with art portfolio cover sheets for every grade, as well as an art project planning sheet and an artist study worksheet.
