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Northern Lights Adaptive Art Project

Hi!  I'm excited to share my first adaptive art project with you here!  Adaptive art is just that--art projects, experiences, and education that have been adapted for students with special needs.  I take into consideration my students' sensory needs, fine motor abilities, processing and perceptual abilities, as well as any non-art goals they may be working on, such as functional cutting skills, reality orientation, or non-art academic concepts.

Art-related objectives that I addressed with this project include:

  • Painting technique
  • cutting on a line
  • creating texture in a variety of ways

Non-art-related objectives include:

  • parallel extension grasp
  • using scissors
  • reality orientation
  • following directions (always a big one!)


I use a lot of process-oriented art to make backgrounds or create pieces that we then die-cut from.  We also frequently use templates and stencils.  Whenever I can make the work less abstract and *very* concrete, it increases my students' success and decreases their frustration.  So our first step was to make the background resemble the Northern Lights.  I put big drops of tempera all over each student's paper, then handed them a 5" x 5" piece of cardboard.  They used their parallel extension grasp to hold the cardboard and scrape it across the paper, spreading the paint, and creating texture.



Most students needed help getting to the edges of the paper--just not something they wanted to do on their own! :)  I absolutely loved how these turned out.  The jewel tones blended beautifully, the cardboard made a fantastic texture, reminiscent of how the Northern Lights create streaks in the sky, and each one was so unique!  Here is one example of a finished background:



This took one class to accomplish, since I have to work with each student 1:1 and it takes awhile to get to everyone, even hustling in a 35 minute class!  In my next post, I'll share the next steps. :)  TFV!

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