Students of all ages love to reminisce about their childhood. Even elementary students enjoy seeing old cartoons, toys, and activities from just a few years before. Many of these nostalgic treats are great for fostering fine motor skills, patience, and perseverance. Why not bring back those fun memories for students and host an Art Reward Day? You’ll reignite student joy and discovery, reinforce positive behaviors, and practice much-needed skills.
For your next Art Reward Day, bring back these six childhood treats.
Rewarding students is one effective way to acknowledge their behaviors, choices, or efforts, and encourage them to keep it up! Treat your students to an Art Reward Day to provide everyone with a change of pace, fun, and new things. Plus, it’s a chance to celebrate wins. It may seem counterintuitive to pause your usual art room programming, but it often kickstarts fresh creativity and connection, keeping your art room running smoothly.
Bring in an Art Reward Day for the following occasions:
- Filling in an extra day in a term
- Using on altered schedule days due to inclement weather, assemblies, etc.
- Treating fast finisher classes to keep all your courses on track
- Incentivizing classroom management
- Celebrating hard work or a clean room on the last day of the term
- Adding a fun, creative break in between longer projects
How to Run an Art Reward Day
Running an Art Reward Day can take many different forms, depending on your teaching style or grade level. If you’re comfortable, students can roam around the room for a scavenger hunt. Students can freely rotate stations using the activities below, or stay at one station until you tell them it is time to switch. You can also do one activity for the whole class to keep it even simpler!
An Art Room Reward Day is just that—a reward. Make sure you clearly announce why they deserve this sweet treat and how they earned it. This makes the celebration specific and meaningful, and ensures they have the knowledge and support to replicate the positive behaviors moving forward.
Bringing Back Childhood Nostalgia
Perhaps it’s the familiar smell of popping open a container of play dough or feeling the embroidery floss pull into knots as you gab in the summer sun. These activities are magical, from the bright colors to the hands-on, screen-free time.
Over the last decade, we’ve seen a resurgence of childhood crafts—and many are marketed to adults to relive our childhood glory. It’s easy to bring these activities back because you can often find the supplies online or in local stores. For example, you can create your own paint-by-number by uploading a photo to a website. Shops are even opening up, specifically catered to bringing back these sentimental crafts.
1. Melting Craft Beads
One jumbo container of beads will last your class forever, making this a budget-friendly activity. Plus, you can often snag the plastic bases from yard sales and thrift stores. Parents are usually more than happy to send in their unused beads and bases, too. As you know all too well, if you bump the plastic base once, at least 10 beads will fall over! Use this activity not only to spark nostalgia but also to strengthen fine motor skills and patience. Attach them to cheap keychains to display them on the go.
- Materials: Melting craft beads, iron, wax paper, keychains, and plastic bases
- Time: 15-30 minutes to build, 2-3 minutes to iron
2. Friendship Bracelets
While friendship bracelets became popular in the US in the 1970’s, there is still a large market for them today. When students repeatedly tie knots, they build dexterity and coordination. Slowly watching the patterns emerge after each individual knot can be incredibly meditative and encourage perseverance. Students can keep or give away the beautiful end result.
- Materials: Various colors of embroidery floss, scissors, and tape
- Time: 30-60 minutes
3. Play Dough
There’s something addictively tactile about squishable toys that we never outgrow. Whether it’s slime, stress balls, or play dough, students love to touch, squeeze, and mold. Host a creativity sculpture contest and remove the pressure by starting over each round. Use printable challenge prompts, like the Art Challenge Materials & Prompts Resource in FLEX Curriculum.
- Materials: Play dough, various carving tools, cookie cutters, and challenge cards
- Time: 15-20 minutes
4. Paint-by-Number
It’s so relaxing to fill in a paint-by-number. They are a way for everyone to access painting without having to learn complex painting techniques. You can print off pre-made ones or create your own. Alternatively, you can do a color-by-number if you don’t have the time to clean up paint.
- Materials: Printed templates, paint, water, brushes, and paper towels
- Time: 20-30 minutes
5. Shrinking Plastic
In 1973, two Boy Scout moms in Brookfield, Wisconsin, created this unique craft, and it still fascinates today! This activity is worth the class field trip to find an oven (or you can use a small toaster oven). Watching the sheets of plastic shrink to one-third of their size in an instant is so entertaining.
- Materials: Sheets of shrinking plastic, colorful permanent markers, oven, metal sheet pan, and oven mitts
- Time: 15-20 minutes
6. Fortune Teller
While origami fortune tellers originated from Japan as early as the 12th century, they didn’t become popular until after World War II. Use these to introduce simple origami folds and the skill of following step-by-step directions. For a more modern take, instead of giving fortunes or life predictions, students can write positive affirmations and encouragements.
- Materials: White copy paper, markers, and scissors
- Time: 10-15 minutes
Whether you are looking for a one-day break from a longer project or want to treat students to new materials, try an Art Reward Day! For an extra twist, bring back childhood nostalgia for a sweet trip down memory lane that also boosts core skills. From friendship bracelets to shrinking plastic, add a lot of color and joy to your students’ lives, all while reinforcing positive art room behaviors. Who knew learning could be such a delight for everyone?
What was your favorite childhood craft?
What are your go-to treats for Art Reward Day?
To chat about more sweet ways to treat your students with other art teachers, join us in The Art of Ed Community!
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.
