10 Simple Summer Craft Kindergarten Ideas

What are you doing this summer with your kids?  Our summer craft kindergarten ideas are easy and so much fun.  These arts and crafts for summer were designed for kindergarten aged kids, but any age will enjoy creating these adorable projects (including adults). 

picture of puffy paint rainbow and ice cream crafts

Summer Painting Crafts

Our kids love painting, so we had to add a few fun summer crafts for kindergarteners that include paint.  

Puffy Paint Craft Ideas

The best way to paint is with puffy paint!  To make it, mix shaving cream (the white foamy kind) with Elmer’s white glue and food coloring.  I use 1 part glue to 2 parts shaving cream, then add in a few drops of food coloring.  I went freehand with the rainbow which was a little trickier than having a design already on the paper.  For the ice cream cone, I added puffy paint to fill in the design.   We also use puffy paint in the winter when creating snowmen

puffy paint craft of a rainbow.
puffy paint craft of an ice cream cone.

Easy Summer Art with Sponge Painting

Cut sponges into the shapes you’d like to create.  Then dab the sponge in the paint or you can use a paint brush to paint the sponge.  If you add one color on top of another, let the first layer dry before adding the second layer.  I did this for the bottom of the sailboat.  I let the blue water dry before adding the orange boat.

sponge paint craft of a sailboat.
sponge paint craft of jellyfish.

Paper Plate Fun

All I use for these easy summer crafts are cheap paper plates, crayons, scissors and glue.  You can also use paint if you don’t want to color the whole plate.  For the fish, color the whole plate, then cut a triangle out to form a mouth.  Use the same triangle for his tail.  Then add on an eye and scales.  For the watermelon, color the inside red and the outside green.  Color black seeds on the perimeter of the red (or all over).  Then cut the watermelon into a few pieces. 

paper plate craft of a watermelon.
paper plate craft of a fish.

Black Glue Art

This is so much fun! I added black acrylic paint to some Elmer’s white glue (keep it in the bottle).  I drew a turtle and snail with pencil first, but you might want to have a template with a design already on the paper for younger kids.  Then trace the design with the black glue.  Let it completely dry (I let mine dry overnight).  For filling it in with color, you could use crayons, markers or paint.  I like using water color paints. 

black glue art of a turtle
black glue art of a snail.

Crafts with Pasta

I found a few dry foods in my pantry to use for these summer theme crafts.  I used bowtie pasta, a thick spaghetti noodle, and red lentils to create the flower.  Then, with rotini pasta and popcorn seeds, I created the sun picture.  I tried my designs out before gluing anything down. 

pasta craft of a sun.
pasta craft of a flower.

Books and Fun Summer Crafts

These summer art and craft ideas are even more special when paired with a great book.  Read a summer themed book before demonstrating one of these fun craft ideas.  Or, look for a read aloud that is specific to the summer craft you are going to create.  For example, you might read Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems before making the puffy paint ice cream art.  If you need help with summertime books, check out our blog Summer Read Alouds.

ice cream puffy paint craft with read aloud book about ice cream

If you try any of these summer craft kindergarten projects, we’d love to hear about it.  Please leave us a comment below.

More Fun Activities for Kindergarten

If you are looking for more fun for kids, we’ve got some fantastic activities that pair with children’s books that we adore.  Check out our most popular ones:

Super Fun Activities for The Mixed Up Chameleon

Fun, Really Fun, Rainbow Fish Activities

Dog Gone Good Activities for Harry the Dirty Dog

Absolutely Adorable Activities for Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Also, our friends at Little Learning Corner has some fun summer educational activities for kindergarten. 

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Hi, we're Jackie, LeighAnn and Jessica

We are a team of kindergarten teachers turned educational consultants.  We help teachers like you with:

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