Guest Post by The Book Chook: Digital Art Websites for Kids

If you've been wondering about my sudden disappearance - it's all been for a good cause. Our house has SOLD! I won't jinx things by packing yet, but we're out of attorney review and pending the "all-clear" on the inspection, we'll be moving to our new home (dubbed Frog Pond Farm) the first of August!

Back in January when I took the plunge and starting blogging publicly, Susan of The Book Chook left one of the very first comments on my blog. If you've never been introduced to her site, it's a treasure trove of literacy activities, laughs and lots of book reviews. I'm excited to have her guest posting here about the convergence of technology and art. Susan has rounded up a group of kid-friendly sites where kids can try their hand at digital art. Take it away, Susan!

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I love the sensory pleasures of children's art activities - the squish and slide of finger paint, the pleasure of collecting and placing collage elements, the smoothness of play dough between the palms. But I love that technology means we can play with art digitally too. Here are some of my favourite websites where kids can draw, make collages, and play with colour, shape and form.

Mister Maker Magic Paintbox at CBeebies

Playing creatively with lots of different art techniques is such fun in this magic paintbox game (It might take a while to load but is worth it.) In Mister Maker Magic Paintbox, as well as paints, pencils and crayons, kids can try drawing with pasta, foil and buttons, and add cute stamps. Click on the pencil holder to keep scrolling through a huge range of things to use. Tip: Take a screen grab of any art work you want to save.

There are other art editors at CBeebies, so have a good look around while you're there, or read more in my article, Playing with Art at CBeebies.

Aminah's World

Will the idea of a digital collage appeal to your kids? At Aminah's World, http://aminahsworld.org/ click on Create your own art work. Children simply click on elements like shells, paper, cloth, feathers etc and add them to a picture.  Objects can be resized, trashed or re-positioned and the result can be saved to a computer as a jpg file. Read more in my article, Create Art at Aminah's World.

Bomomo

Bomomo really encourages a sense of play. Choose one of the icons at the bottom left of the screen, then click or drag on the screen and see what happens. Try moving the mouse faster or pressing on it harder, does it change anything? If kids want to clear the screen and start over, they should click the small white paper icon bottom right. To save, click the save disc icon bottom right and it will save to your computer as a jpg.

I hope you and your kids have fun with these three art editors. What other ways do you know of playing with digital art?

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Teachers and parents from all over the world visit The Book Chook to find tips on encouraging kids to read, write and create; articles about using technology to motivate kids' learning; and links to games, learning activities and online fun. 

Susan Stephenson is the face behind The Book Chook, where she shares her passion for children's literacy, literature and learning. Susan taught Kindergarten to Year 6 in Australian primary schools, drama outside school to kids and young teens, and ESL in China. Currently, as well as pretending to be a chicken on her blog, she writes stories for children, and edits the free magazine for parents, Literacy Lava.