It can be as difficult if not more difficult for older elementary school children to find new ways to learn than younger ones. When the children are young you can use amusing games or crafts to entertain them. You mix fun with learning to try to find a balance that excites the children and helps them to love learning. As the children get older they become more self aware and they start to act like adults. You can’t simply treat them like babies anymore. They want to be treated like adults and if you treat them like babies they will probably resent it. The same is true for the activities that these older kids participate in. However, this doesn’t mean that older kids don’t like fun. You need to find a way to balance fun with the seriousness of the academic situation. One of the best ways that I have found to do so is to introduce some great coloring crafts. Although this might not seem like a very adult thing for your budding adult to do, there are certain crafts that will help them to develop certain skills. Described below are some of my favorite coloring crafts for older elementary school children.
1. Coloring plants and animals. When you tell older elementary school children that they will be coloring they might look at you strangely. What you need to do is to incorporate the coloring into some of their lessons. If the children are learning about plants or animals have them color various parts of the plants or animals. Help them to learn important anatomical terms or the names of animals by coloring. This can also be a great way to teach them about different parts of the human body. Have them color one part one color and another part a different color–you will be amazed to see how quickly students learn and how well they remember when they have colored what they are learning.
2. Although maybe a little abstract, you might want to experiment with colors and emotions in the classroom. Try playing music (preferably classical music) and have them color out what they feel. They don’t need to draw anything concrete–just use the raw color to express how the music makes them feel. This will help the children to associate colors with particular emotions, which can help them to understand art better.
3. I recommend that you purchase a large outline drawing of a famous work of art. Divide this image up into individual pieces of paper and distribute the papers to each member of the class. Have each member of the class color their page with colors appropriate to the original image. Provide a copy of the original work of art so that the children can see how to color it. When everyone is finished with their page collect them and put them together. The finished product is a marvelous image with wonderful variety in terms of coloring. You might also want to give each child individual outlines of famous works of art and have them color them. These activities will teach the children about great works of art and give them a chance to learn something about the process of making art.
As you can see, there are many great ideas for coloring crafts for older elementary school children. Don’t limit yourself to these ideas; brainstorm and come up with some great new ideas of your own. Ask your elementary school students or children to come up with their own ideas for great coloring crafts.
