A Family Art Night event is a wonderful way to get families involved in supporting art. Parents or teachers can organize it at their school. Homeschoolers can organize it for their network of families. And planning and hosting a Family Art Night is a great project for Cadette and Senior Girl Scouts.

Some of you are probably familiar with Family Math Night events. This is a similar idea, offering hands-on art experiences that students and their families can explore together. The activities are set up in stations, so that everyone can move freely from one to another. At each station, or table, there are volunteers to get them started and keep materials organized and replenished. Activities can range from making paper beads to styrofoam sculpture. Some of the activities may teach specific skills, such as calligraphy, origami, or pop-out cards, but most should be free expression, using painting, collage and sculpture.

Choosing the right art projects for the event is important. Remember that it is up to you, as a school event, to model an appropriate approach to art. This is not the place for coloring books, or step-by-step copying projects unless that step-by-step process is necessary to teach a specific skill, as mentioned above. An exampleof a good project is paper weaving, shown below, very popular when a mix of papers is used (wallpapers, gift wrap, and colorful magazine pages, for example.)

If you're ready to get the ball rolling for a Family Art Night, click here to get our Planning Guide in an easy to print format.

You can help support this site by getting your art and framing supplies from Dick Blick when you go there from here!

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