Winter Art Project for Preschoolers
Looking for a winter art project for kids and preschoolers? Here’s a mesmerizing winter landscape process art project! This engaging and creative craft is a great way to welcome the icy season. While you’re in a wintery mood, check out the rest of our winter activities for preschool!
Winter Landscape Process Art
When the weather turns colder and the holiday season is upon us, this art project is ideal for getting a little bit messy while making a vibrant and unique winter masterpiece.
Get your hands on some shaving cream, because this process art project is all about making shaving cream Christmas trees. If you haven’t crafted with shaving cream yet, you’re missing out! It’s a wonderful and versatile tool for all of your winter lesson plans.
Shaving cream, and toddlers and preschoolers, are a match made in heaven.
The first time I introduced shaving cream to my son at 3 years old, he played with it for over an hour. It has since become a favorite sensory tool in our house! I use it for activities like practicing our letters and numbers, puffy painting, and even making shaving cream slime!
Frequently Asked Questions About Process Art
Preschool process art is art that is focused on the experience the children have while they’re creating, not necessarily the end product. If the process art activity has a nice result, that’s great! But the finished product is not the primary goal.
Process arts and crafts allow preschoolers the chance to explore, ask questions, try new things, and see how things work. Process art fits in with how children learn because it allows them room to be themselves, make their own decisions, and just create! You can even engage in shared process art with more than one child to help build social-emotional regulation.
Check out our fine motor winter process art activity and our frame-worthy winter art. Grab those winter cookie cutters and some paint and make this creative art project! If you’re brave enough for glitter use, this sparkly winter art is quite magical!
Some great winter themes include snow and ice, the season of winter, and mittens and warm clothing. Arctic animals are a super interesting theme for little ones that also allows you to include hibernation and animal tracks as part of your animal study. All of these themes allow for hands-on fun with water, ice, or snow, and you can even add in some fun snowball games!
Other Winter Activities for Kids
Don’t miss these themed activity packs! They’re filled with hands-on learning that will tie in perfectly to your winter preschool themes.
How to Make Winter Landscape Art Activity
What’s better than a fun winter art project for preschoolers? This winter craft for kids utilizes process art, which encourages persistence and develops patience and creativity. No two projects are supposed to look alike and the focus is strictly on the process and not the end result.
Materials
- Canvas board
- Blue and white tempura paint
- Paint bowls
- Toothbrush
- Paintbrushes
- Cotton buds/Q tips
- Shaving cream
- Food trays
- Glitter glue
- Brown construction paper
- White cardstock paper
- Art smocks
- Glitter, snowflake gems, confetti (optional)
I know this is a long list of supplies for these winter paintings, but really, you probably already have everything on hand.
The Set Up
Gather all the materials needed and prep your area. Fair warning – this involves paint, glue, and potentially glitter so it can get a touch messy!
I often use a tablecloth, plastic food trays, and have my kiddos wear art smocks. We use these art smocks for all our art projects, and as long as you don’t wash them too frequently, they hold up really well. (They are art smocks, so it really is ok for them to be covered in paint!)
For ease, I pre-cut the brown paper trunks (about 1/2 inch wide and varying lengths) and after the shaving cream swirls are dry, I pre-cut the large triangles used for the body of the tree. This step will come later in the project. You can cut the triangles in varying sizes and configurations.
Getting Started on this Winter Art and Craft for Kids
Sometimes, snow themed art projects for preschoolers, like this one, have to happen in stages. I like spending a few days on a single art project for my preschoolers because it teaches them about waiting. If this project were all done at once, it wouldn’t work out.
Paint the Background
Begin by having your kids paint a canvas board with blue and white tempura paint. Remind them to be careful not to mix the colors too much and to leave some texture and a pretty mix of colors behind.
My preschoolers chose a mix of blue and white paint, but if you add purple, this fits int really well with an arctic preschool theme because the background will look like the Northern Lights. You can even add a polar bear cut-out in between the trees. If you prefer something a little less messy, try oil pastels and blend them together.
Here comes a messy part – invite the children to “spatter” bits of white paint using a toothbrush to look like a snowstorm onto the blue and white background.
To do this, have the children dip their toothbrush into white paint and turn the toothbrush down so that the bristles are facing the canvas. Drag their fingers slowly across the bottom of the bristles and watch as the white paint splatters across the painting. You can model this with a dry toothbrush for them, if desired!
You might have some kiddos who feel apprehensive about putting their hands in the paint. If you let them know that there’s a trip to wash their hands when they’re done, it might lesson some of the mess anxiety! This is also the point in the project where the art smocks really prove their value.
Next, Marble the Card Stock for the Trees
While the snowy landscape canvases dry, it’s time to move on to another component of this beautiful winter art project for preschoolers. By using a shaving cream marbling painting technique, preschoolers will make triangles that represent winter trees.
Start by adding shaving cream to a food tray. Invite your preschoolers to squeeze liquid paint in swirls all around the shaving cream. We first tried using black glitter glue, but the color mostly got absorbed and it didn’t really work. However, preschool art projects are all about adapting and being creative!
Once all the paint has been squeezed onto the shaving cream tray, use a paintbrush, stick, cotton bud, or any other utensil to swirl and mix all the colors to create a marble effect. This is so much fun for young kids and a great lesson in control – overmixing will lead to all the colors blending to create a murky, mucky color.
Once the colors have been swirled together to make a marbled effect, it’s time to dip! This part can get very messy, so the adult might want to take over at this part.
Lay a piece of cardstock paper on top of the marbled shaving cream and gently push the paper down to pick up the marbled pattern. Your preschooler will be absolutely mesmerized by this part!
Now it’s time to scrape all that extra paint and shaving cream off your finished product. Use a scraper, a piece of cardboard, or a plastic lid to scrape the excess off the paper. Little hands are welcome to assist with this part, just guide them to scrape lightly.
Once all the extra has been scraped off, you’re welcome to save some of this marbled shaving cream for them to play in later. They can mix all the colors up to see what color it will create!
What a gorgeous result! These marble paintings are really magical and so much fun for preschoolers to be involved in. Truly a process, but worth it in the end.
Turn the Marbled Paper into Trees
After the marble cardstock dried, I cut out triangles from the marbled paper in varying shapes and sizes for my preschoolers.
I also cut 1/2 inch wide strips of brown paper for the tree trunks. The lengths varied. Preschoolers glued down their tree trunks and then the tree triangles. They decided where everything should go and made their picture to their own liking.
This activity is also great for measuring and estimating. It’s fun to compare the sizes of the triangles and the tree trunks and measure them against each other.
Now Add Some Sparkle
Now you could be done at this point (and perhaps your preschoolers are too,) but feel free to finish with silver glitter along the bottom of the canvas, or add snowflake gems and confetti. It certainly adds a perfect winter sparkly touch that brings this winter art project for kids to life!
Here are some of our favorite sparkly art additions.
Perfect Picture Books about Winter
No preschool theme is complete without picture books! Here are our favorite classics about snow and winter.
Winter Landscape Art
Preschoolers will use two different process art techniques to create a winter landscape that is beautiful and unique!
Materials
- Canvas board
- Blue and white tempura paint
- Paint bowls
- Toothbrush
- Paintbrushes
- Cotton buds/Q tips
- Shaving cream
- Food trays
- Glitter glue
- Brown construction paper
- White cardstock paper
- Art smocks
- Glitter, snowflake gems, confetti (optional)
Instructions
- Gather all the materials needed and prep your area.
- Pre-cut tree trunks out of brown construction paper.
- Have your kids paint a canvas board with blue and white tempura paint.
- Have them drag their fingers slowly across the bottom of a toothbrush that has been dipped in white paint, making paint splatters across the canvas. This makes a "snowstorm" on top of the blue and white background.
- Set the canvas aside to dry.
- Add shaving cream to a food tray. Invite your preschoolers to squeeze liquid paint in swirls all around the shaving cream.
- Use a paintbrush, stick, cotton bud, or any other utensil to swirl all the colors to create a marble effect.
- Lay a piece of cardstock paper on top of the marbled shaving cream and gently push the paper down to pick up the marbled pattern.
- Using a scraper, a piece of cardboard, or a plastic lid, scrape the excess shaving cream off the paper.
- After the marble cardstock dries, cut out triangles in varying shapes and sizes.
- Preschoolers glue down their tree trunks and then the tree triangles.
- If desired, finish with silver glitter along the bottom of the canvas and/or add snowflake gems and confetti.
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I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
