Coin Rubbing Art Ideas for Children
Did you ever do coin rubbing as a kid? I did and I LOVED it! (in fact I still do.)
Coin rubbing is such a quick and easy art activity for kids, you can set it up in minutes and everything that you need, you will have at home – better still it is not messy so it’s easy to clear up afterwards! Plus you can make a really colourful piece of artwork to put on your wall.
In fact this would make a great travel activity as it uses materials that are easy to carry around.
Just one thing to remember, since coin rubbing uses small items, it only suitable for children over the age of three who are past the stage of putting things in their mouths.
You will need:-
- Paper – the paper should not be too thick otherwise the coin rubbing won’t work very well. In fact the best paper I have found for this is the cheap standard copy paper that you buy for a printer in packs of 500 sheets. So basically you don’t want to use that expensive art paper.
- Pencils – now put away those lovely top quality watercolour pencils that you bought to use with your adult colouring books! They will work of course, but actually are not the best for this. The best ones I have found are harder (verithin if you want to get technical) pencils, or even the cheap sets of pencils that are marketed to kids. Ordinary lead pencils are also really good for this.
- Crayons – if you have kids who don’t quite have the fine motor skill for pencils, crayons are a good way of starting them off with this craft.
- Some Coins - The best ones to use are those with big bold designs rather than a lot of fine details. I’ll talk some more about the best ones to use later.
That’s it, you are good to go!
How to do a Coin Rubbing
Get your sheet of paper and put the coin on top, hold the two steady and start rubbing the crayon or pencil over the coin.
It works best if you start very gently and go over the coin several times. Just carry on until you have a really good image of the coin’s design. This will help teach your children a little bit of patience and how to use a pencil without pressing too hard.
Coin Rubbing with Crayons
If your kids prefer to use crayons you can start them off with them. They can either use the point, or for some big, quick instant gratification, take the paper off the crayon and use it sideways.
You will get some nice colourful images but you will find that the detail is not reproduced as well.
Coin Rubbing With Pencils
You will get much better images using pencils. The best ones from my collection of colouring pencils that I found are actually a set of cheap double ended pencils made by Helix aimed at kids! They are blendable ones but not water soluable.
Which are the Best Coins to Use for Coin Rubbing?
The great thing about this is that you can use whatever coins you have in your purse! I do have some suggestions for what works best though.
I’m going to get a bit nerdy here. Sorry – you can skip this bit if you want. Here in the UK we have a tendency to change our coinage on a regular basis to make it cheaper and to bring out special edition coins to commemorate various occasions.
I remembered doing coin rubbing as a kid and felt that I got better results then. Fortunately I have a small coin collection, which includes a number of old coins which are not legal tender. So I got them out to have a go at doing coin rubbing with them.
Firstly, those old coins are much larger, so the design is bigger so it just looks better as a coin rubbing. Also, I think the relief of the design is greater, so that it shows up much better when you have rubbed it.
My collection includes various coins from countries which now use Euros, which is really interesting and educational for the kids. I also have coins that I must have begged of friends, as they are from countries I have never been too. Here are some favourites which make really good rubbings!
These include a Yugoslavian coin, and Austrian Schilling, a Dutch coin with the head of Queen Juliana, a fab Greek coin with an atom on it and an Irish Harp 10p.
Do you have any foreign coins, or know anyone who can lend you some?
What to do with your Coin Rubbings
Here are a couple of fab ideas for what to do with your coin rubbings once you have done them.
You could use your coin rubbings to make this fantastic money tree picture!
This is a really great and educational idea - use your coin rubbings to make a matching game.
Coin rubbing is a fantastic fun and educational art activity for kids - it's also great fun for adults too! I hope you have liked these coin rubbing ideas. Go on, try it yourself!