Monet Study for Kids - Coffee Milk and Courage

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My kids had so much fun with this Claude Monet unit study! Monet is my personal kid favorite artist because his art is colorful, gentle, and full of nature. There are so many wonderful books written about Monet that make this study extra fun, and the crafts are so satisfying. When my kids finished these crafts, they felt like they had really created something.

We studied Monet’s life, his most famous works (brought to life with some super fun activities), and his impressionistic style.

Here are our favorite resources and activities from our artist study with Monet!

Monet Books for Kids

Katie and the Waterlily Pond

written by James Mayhew and Mary McQuillan
The Katie series by James Mayhew are all wonderful, but this one is extra sweet. I love these books because they introduce the kids to Monet’s most famous works that makes the paintings come alive through storytelling. I also love that they work in the paintings’ real names. The paintings as a setting for the story help your kids to remember who the art belongs to.

The Magical Garden of Claude Monet

written by Laurence Anholt
This book is beautiful. The story is sweet, and the art is in impressionistic style like Monet. The center has a gorgeous waterlily fold out.

Linnea and Monet’s Garden

written by Christian Bjork, illustrated by Lena Anderson
This book is much more detailed and long. It takes about 30 minutes to read. There is also a video of it! (Here is the link) The setting is a Little girl named Linnea who visits Monet’s gardens and home museum after his death. She explores with an elderly friend who fills her in on the details of Monet’s life.

Monet Poem Board Book

written by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober
This is a cute little book that shows ___ pieces of Monet’s art, along with a little poem. My kids used this book several times to imitate the painting, since it’s a board book and it stands up easily. This one is SUPER if you have little kids and are trying to introduce them to art early.

A Child’s Introduction to Art

written by Heather Alexander, illustrated by Meredith Hamilton
This is a full on Art History book, and it’s wonderful. This is the best book to have on hand for all of your art studies! This book devotes entire 2-page spread to many artists, including Monet. But I love that it also has a section on the Impressionistic art style. This helps to give context to Monet’s style and helps kids understand how modern and risk-taking his style really was! It also has wonderful pages about color theory and other general art education. It’s full of illustrations and is fun to look at!

Monet Stickers

What could be more fun than a pile stickers of Monet’s art? My kids each have a sticker book, and my kids love being able to choose from artists’s painting to add to their collection.

Monet Activities and Crafts for Kids

The activities we did for this Monet study for kids may be my favorite study activities we’ve ever done! They are so colorful and unique, and you’ll defineitely want to display when they’re done. ♥

1. Monet’s Poppy Field Craft

I’m starting with this one because it was hands-down my favorite. Making Monet’s Poppy Field!

What you will need:

— Green Construction Paper
— Green Gift Tissue Paper, cut into 2-inch squares
— Red Gift Tissue paper, cut into 3-inch squares
— Yellow Gift Tissue Paper, cut into 2-inch squares
— Black Gift Tissue paper, cut into tiny strips and crinkled up
— Foam Brushes
— Elmers Liquid Glue
— Water

1. Prepare the craft supplies ahead of time by cutting the tissue paper into small squares. Cut the Green and Yellow Gift tissue paper into 2-inch squares, Cut the Red Tissue paper into 3-inch squares, cut the Black tissue paper into tiny strips and crinkle them tightly.

2. Make a glue mixture of 1/2 glue with 1/2 water.

3. Use the foam brushes to spread glue mixture on green construction paper in sections. Add the squares of green tissue paper on top of the glue. Repeat until entire paper is covered with green tisue squares. This creates the base for our field! (It will look wet, but don’t worry, the glue will dry.)

4. Decide how many poppies you want to add to your sheet.

5. Making the Poppies: add a dab of glue to your field base and lay a red tissue square on top of the dab. Add another dab of glue to the center of the square, so that the corners alternate. (these will give the affect of ruffled petals) Add 1 yellow square on top of the red ones. Repeat until you have added the number of poppies you want to create.

6. Allow the glue to dry, then fluff up the sides of the tissue to create a ruffled petal effect.

7. Add a dab of glue to the empty center of the poppy, then add the crinkled black tissue bits to look like the black poppy seeds.

8. Allow to dry, then display your art!

2. Monet’s Lily Pond Activity

What you will need:

— White Card stock Paper
— Assorted Watercolor Paints in Blues, Greens and Golden Browns
— Art Brushes
— Pastel Cupcake Liners
— Scissors
— Glue Sticks

1. Paint the card stock paper with the blue, green and brown paints. The goal is to make the page look like water. (i.e. the waterlily pond). Allow to dry.

2. Cut slits from the outer edge of the cupcake liners to the inner circle, leaving the center uncut. Once the card stock watercolor painting is dry, use the glue stick to glue the 3 pastel green cupcake liners around the painting. These will be your lily pads.

3. To create the water lilies, chose a pastel cupcake liner and glue it to the lily pad. Add another yellow cupcake liner to the center to create the warm inner part of the lily. Repeat until each of your lily pads has a waterlily glued on top.

3. Monet Japanese Bridge Watercolor Reflection Art

This reflection art activity imitates Monet’s Japanese Bridge painting where the upper part of his painting is reflected in the water below. Obviously, this is not how Monet accomplished his reflection ;), but it’s a fun way to teach kids what reflections in painting even is. They’re pretty awed when their painting’s reflection is revealed!

What you’ll need:

— Regular White Paper (easily foldable)
— Watercolor Paints
— Art Brushes

1. Place the paper in front of your student vertically then lightly draw a pencil line across the center of the page. Instruct your student to painting Monet’s Japanese bridge going over the pond on the top half of the page (above the line).

2. As soon as your student has completing their painting, gently fold the paper in half (try not to make a hard crease) then press the blank half gently into the painted half. When you open it back up, you will have an upside down version of the top half. Have your student dip thier paintbrush in water and stroke the bottom half. The water will spread the small amounts of paint around, giving the bottom half a blurry reflection of the top half.

4. Painting Like Monet

Yep, just plain painting. Imitating the artist himself one of the sweetest part of a Monet study for kids. I love opening these books full of Monet’s art and style, pulling out the paints and card stock paper, and doing some fun, imitative painting. Kids will put their own impressionistic twist on Monet’s art, so praise them for it! Hang them on the wall, and make a big deal out of their effort. ♥

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Which craft or resource is your favorite from this Monet study for kids? Leave a comment below or contact me HERE to tell me!