If you are looking for something to do with a kid on a cold January day check to see if your town has an arts program. Through some Google searching I noticed one day that our town has a drop-in program for the arts. Best off all it was FREE. The program goes from late-morning to early afternoon. It included ages 2 to 14 so this something we could do for a number of years. Although, when I attended the program it was mostly pre-school and elementary kids in attendance.

The day we went the art instructor was doing a program in which the kids cut construction paper and made a life size self-portrait. We helped with the use of magic markers, scissors, glue and tape. I helped with coloring the construction paper creation. My husband did a good job of figuring out the measurements for the arms, legs, head and body.

My son suggestions were that we had to use red construction paper.

“I want it to look like Spiderman,” he said.

I pulled up on the phone images of Spiderman to model from and we began to make spider web lines for his Spidey costume with a spider in the middle. Then we used black markers to shade in the face.

At first he was uncertain about it, but by the end he loved his life-sized Spiderman to play with when we got home. This was a great family activity on a cold and blistery Saturday morning. After we were done we checked out the art center and looked at the different paintings and sculptures. We discussed what he saw in a winter scene, a large bird, a log cabin or a scary looking tree. He eyed a sculpture and though it looked like a Power Ranger, he has his own way at looking at the world.

I feel doing activities like this help him be imaginative and it is project that we can do together. Besides I can’t remember the last time I made a life-size Spiderman!