Children love bright colors. Children love things that glow. Combine the two at the art table, and it’ll be hard to see which shines brighter – their smiles or their pictures! With just a few supplies, this neon art activity is ready to “glow”.
Set up this station and watch the children independently create and explore the bright, neon art. Use these ideas during your 5 Senses theme and explore the brilliant colors during the study of sight. Doing a space theme? Create space-age drawings of aliens and more!
Scientific Investigation Unit 1
Preschool Science Centers – Our Five Senses Unit 1
$12.60Students will learn about the five senses and how to be good scientists during this unit on scientific investigation. Each of the 7 lessons is carefully planned for you and includes: a supply list, learning objectives, lesson ideas, photos and activities, book suggestions, and a journal page.
Safety Warning!
Please be aware that LED black lights emit a small amount of UV radiation and can be harmful to the eyes. Do not let the children look directly into the light. Supervision is recommended during this project.
Materials Needed for Glowing Neon Art
- Neon oil pastels or neon paint
- Paper – any type or color should work
- Black-light LED flashlights
How to Create Glowing Neon Art
Follow these easy tips for creating a fun glowing neon art experience:
- Prepare the art easel or art table with paper.
- Place oil pastels on the table. Remind the students to be gentle with the oil pastels since they are softer than crayons.
- Provide black-light flashlights in a basket on the table and encourage the students to shine the light on their work.
- Ask the students if they notice a difference in the color brilliance with and without the black light.
- Use words like:
- glowing
- bright
- brilliant
- fluorescent
- vivid
Organize these supplies at the easel or art table and watch the creativity begin! Children can draw their picture then take the black-light flashlight and shine it on the art to explore the way the colors react.
Neon oil pastels work best with this activity, but highlighters and neon paint would work as well. Neon-colored crayons can also be used, but do not present as well. Pastels show better because their soft texture allows more color on the page. As a result, though, the oil pastel markings never really dry completely, so watch out for smudging on the papers. Here’s a great idea to add a neon art section to a classroom art show! Have a basket of black-light flashlights close by for viewers to use.
How fun!!!! A black light section at the Art Show!
Cari R.
Learning at the Art Easel
Activities at the art easel create a fun and inviting way for students to explore new things. Some of the educational standards seen in this activity include:
- Science – using simple tools (the black lights) to observe and explore different objects and environments.
- Physical Development and Visual arts – developing fine motor skills (drawing with oil pastels) to produce two-dimensional works of art.
- Visual Arts -using a variety of materials (oil pastels) and tools (flashlights) for producing visual art.
More Ideas for Glowing Neon Fun
There are many opportunities to offer activities with neon colors. Here are a few more:
- Glowing magic potion station
- Sensory bottles using plastic bottles and fun neon fillers like glow in the dark alphabet beads
- Glowing neon rice in the sensory table
- Glowing play dough by adding neon water colors in the mix
FREE Play Dough Recipe Book!
Play Dough is the perfect tool for developing the hand strength and fine motor muscles necessary before young children are able to write!
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More Art Ideas
- Here are some tips on how to set up an art easel.
- Some delightful art books to get the creative spirit flowing!
- How this glowing neon art activitiy hits many of NAEYC’s marks for process art.