Four art workshops for children in remote learning

With schools closed again due to the pandemic, teachers and parents are seeking engaging distance-learning activities for children. This article presents four art workshops tailored to different age groups, designed to be done at home with minimal adult supervision. For ages 3-6, a 'Like Pollock' activity involves dripping tempera paint onto paper to create abstract works, encouraging children to title their pieces. Another workshop for the same age group uses fruits and vegetables to extract natural pigments—green from chard or spinach, red from beetroot or raspberries, yellow from saffron or carrots—allowing children to experiment with color changes using lemon or baking soda. For ages 7-9, a workshop inspired by Paul Klee introduces the artist via the animated series 'L'arte con Matì e Dadà – Paul Klee,' then asks children to reproduce his painting 'Cat and Bird' (1928, MoMA, New York) and create self-portraits using asymmetrical harmony. A second workshop for this age group draws on Giuseppe Arcimboldo's composite portraits: children cut fruit and vegetable images from magazines or supermarket catalogs and collage them into faces. The activities aim to maintain connections with students, sustain their desire to return to school, and continue developing manual and creative skills. A student quoted says, 'Soon we will return to school, and I can't wait to tell my classmates and teachers what I learned even during the days at home!'