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With New Year's Eve just a few days away, now is the perfect time for some firework themed activities! These firework art activities would also be great when celebrating Firework night, Chinese New Year and the 4th of July too!

Fireworks are such a brilliant topic to theme play and art activities around! We had a lot of fun doing these activities around bonfire night in November, but they translate perfectly to any firework celebration. If you can't get to see any fireworks first hand, do watch some together on YouTube to inspire and captivate the children before enjoying one of these firework art activities.

Salt Art Fireworks

Salt art is a great activity no matter what the theme, but it particularly lends itself well to fireworks. If you do this on black card it looks really effective and the colours really pop! The way the watercolour bleeds into the salt is really satisfying to watch and produces some beautiful results.

What You Will Need

• PVA Glue in a squeezy bottle
• Salt
• Black Card (paper isn't ideal for this activity )
• Watercolour pallet or liquid watercolours
• Paintbrush

Process

1. Using the bottle of glue squeeze out firework shapes onto the black card.

2. Cover the glue in salt and shake off any excess. There's no need to wait for the glue to dry, you are ready to get going with adding colour straight away.

3. Make your watercolours nice and wet or use liquid watercolours. Gently dab or drip the colours onto the salt.

The process of salt art is great fun and always a favourite with my kids. The finished painting can be a little delicate once dry, particularly if the salt has been applied very liberally, so handle with care or put them on display to be admired from a distance!

Fireworks with Hama Beads and Play Dough

We use Hama beads a lot in our play! They are great for fine motor development and when used without the peg boards are easier for younger children to handle.

For this activity I made up a batch of black play dough to represent the night sky. You can find all the details for my easy, no-cook recipe here.

I then set out the hama beads and encouraged them to get creative with their fireworks. Whilst Miss 6 was quite confident to go for it, Miss 4 wanted a little bit more guidance. To help her out I found a pipe cleaner and moulded it into several different firework shapes, printing each one into the play dough. Once she had a print to follow she happily added beads to the shapes and loved it! This activity kept them engaged independently for a good 30 minutes.

Firework Sticky Wall

We can't resist a sticky wall from time to time. It's so easy to set up and can be adapted to so many different scenarios!

To make our firework sticky wall I stuck some black card up onto our wall. I then covered it with sticky-back plastic (contact paper), with the sticky side facing up and secured it with some tape at the four corners.

I set out a whole range of craft materials for the girls to add to their sticky wall, including pom poms, pipe-cleaners, matchsticks and stars. We did this activity around Bonfire Night, which is a big UK celebration in November, so I also added some materials for them to build their own bonfire.

The girls loved the creative freedom with this activity and were so keen to do it again! The great thing with this set up is you can easily put a fresh piece of contact paper up again to have another go. Many of the craft items come off easily too which means you can salvage them for another activity.

Firework Dot Art

This is a simple art technique whereby you use cotton buds (q-tips) instead of a paintbrush to make dots on a page. It's great for fine motor skills and the results are beautiful!

If younger children need support with this you could always draw the shapes with a pencil for them to follow. If they are not concerned just let them explore and experiment with this technique. Remember it's the process rather than the end product that is most important!

These activities are 4 that we've really enjoyed recently but if you're looking for more inspiration do check out my firework activity board on pinterest for more brilliant play and craft activities.