Activity:
Make String Art
Sick of the same old arts and crafts projects? Try a new kind of art—string art! Kids make a simple geometric design while they learn how to use a hammer and nails. Along the way, they get lots of practice with fine motor skills and hand eye coordination, too.
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What You Need:
- Square of plywood or balsa wood around 12 by 12 inches (can be found at your local craft store)
- ½ inch nails
- Ball peen hammer
- 2 different sized plates for tracing, one an inch or so larger than the other
- Pencil
- Ruler
- 2 complimentary colors of string (blue and orange, yellow and purple, red and green)
- Old magazine
What You Do:
- Help your child position the larger plate so that it's centered on the wood board, and have him use a pencil to lightly trace around the outside.
- Now, have him position the smaller plate inside the larger circle and trace around the outside, creating a smaller circle inside the larger one.
- Have your child use a ruler to measure and mark every half inch around each circle. As he works, he's also getting great practice with his math skills and concentration!
- Now its time for some hammering! Place a magazine under the wood base to ensure his nails won't pound through the work table. Then, help him use the ball peen hammer to hammer a nail into each mark on both circles.
- When the nails are all in, its time for some colorful string! Have him cut a length of string and tie it around a nail on the outside circle. Then, have him loop the string around the nails, first on the inside and then outside circle, creating a zigzagged design around the circle.
- Next, he can use the other color of string to tie, loop, and zigzag on the nails that haven’t been looped with string.
- Have him continue tying and looping lengths of string until each nail has been looped with a piece of string.
When he's all done, help him find a special spot to display finished geometric string art for the whole family to enjoy!
