Shadow Art for Kids a New Creative Chalk Activity

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A new creative shadow art activity for kids! Make fun shapes with our bodies, trace them and transform it into a mega masterpiece on your driveway!

My kids love decorating our driveway with sidewalk chalk art.

Over the years, I have taken advantage of this interest! I have created a bunch of different learning activities to do out there.

This time, though, it was all about fun!

We made exciting shapes with our bodies. Then traced the shadows.

And finally worked together to transform the shadow tracings into a work of art!

Make a sidewalk chalk obstacle course!

Creative Chalk Shadow Art for Kids

To make your own shadow art activity, you will need:

• sidewalk chalk
• a sunny day
• plenty of space for drawing!

The first thing you will need to do is have your kids (or you!) strike a bunch of different poses!

Have them bend their arms and legs and move around their whole body.

Encourage your kids to make their shadows as interesting as possible to inspire your art.

When they have a shadow shape that they are happy with, make sure they freeze!

Time to trace your shadows

Go ahead and trace their shadow with the sidewalk chalk.

If you decide to strike a pose yourself, be sure to choose a pose you can comfortably remain for several minutes.

It may take a while for your kids trace you.

Otherwise, you may end up sore the next day. I may or may not be speaking from personal experience.

This is where the shadow art can get quite funny for the kids!

Seriously, though, this is the kind of activity to choose if you want to really make your neighbors curious.

Especially if you choose a contorted sort of pose like I mentioned earlier.

Chalk out these other fun chalk activities for kids!

Turn your kids shadow tracing into an art activity

Once the tracing is complete, stand back and look at the shadow. Walk all around it, looking at it from every angle.

Your goal is now to turn the shadow shape into something else.

What do you see? A robot, a spaceship, a hippo riding a bicycle?

Now it is time for the kids to transform that simple shadow shape into a work of art!

We decided that my son’s shadow looked like Santa’s sleigh.

So naturally we had to add Santa himself, a pile of presents, and of course some flying reindeer!

Expand the drawing as much as your kids want to.

My children really got into it, adding houses and Christmas trees on the ground below Santa’s sleigh.

Try this fun countaing maze for preschoolers–made with chalk!

Here is another one we did. The kids decided the shadow looked like an alligator.

They made some water for the alligator and a sun up above.

The alligator appears to be some rare species with eleven legs.

Shadow art tracing activities can take many turns with creative kids.

Other activities to try creative shadow art with your kids:

• Trace not just your personal shadow, but also the shadows of other objects that you have around. What can you turn their shadows into?
• As you strike your pose, put on a hat or hold onto objects that have an interesting shape to add more detail to your shadow drawing.
• Do this indoors using butcher block paper instead of a driveway. You will still need a sunny day, so look for a window where you get some direct sun!

What are your favorite ways to have fun with sidewalk chalk?